


Join The Whisperers

by Sheksper



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood, Blood and Injury, Boys In Love, Clairvoyance, Corpses, Court, Crushes, Family Feels, Family Secrets, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Gen, Ghosts, Graduation, Grief/Mourning, Injury, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Cousins, Law Enforcement, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mountains, Murder, Murder Mystery, Mutual Pining, Out of Body Experiences, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Pregnancy, Secrets, Stabbing, haunted au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-10-04 23:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 109,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheksper/pseuds/Sheksper
Summary: Born with the ability to see spirits and experience their deaths, Lance is forced to distance himself from crowded cities as much as possible. The thing is, in the small town of Lionsville, nothing ever happens. Everyday is the same routine. This day, too, would have been no different, if it weren't for the human bones that were uncovered from the mountain on the edge of town. As news of a killer spreads around town, information comes to light that leaves Lance with more questions than answers, and it all ties back to the mysterious boy from the mountain. When anyone could be capable of murder and no one can be trusted, will Lance be able to discover the truth in time?





	1. Clavicle

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! Sorry, I'm late... Hope no one noticed that I took half a year to write this... Yeah, so, to explain that, university is brutal. I'm ready to just end it all at this point, y'know? I was also very uninspired. I did finally finish this though, and I'm pretty proud of it. It's my longest fic ever, so strap in.  
> Also, I'd like to firstly say that when I wrote this, I didn't know anything about Veronica, so if she's wildly out of character, please don't blame me.  
> I would also like to mention that someone complained that my chapters weren't long enough, so here you go, longer chapters. It means fewer updates, but that's the sacrifice we make, I suppose.  
> Another thing, here on the Sheksper page, as far as Voltron's ending goes, we're pretending _that_ didn't happen. You know what I'm referring to. Voltron ended after season six, yeehaw, enjoy.

When Lance thought about it, graduating was overrated. He didn’t need to graduate. Dropping out? That was where it was at. What was the point of school? Was there one? Constant daily pain and suffering, and for what? A piece of paper? What would he do with that in a small town like this? Nothing. The answer was nothing. There was nothing at school that Lance had a reason to go back for, that was the thing. Lance could make a living without that degree. He could, for instance, open his own farm at the mountain’s edge. He could also just work at his own family farm with his mother and sister. That would work.

“Lance! Get your lazy ass out of bed!” And speak of the devil, there was his sister. Veronica. Why couldn’t she just let Lance lay in bed and reason his way out of getting up for school? It was only Monday and he had already had more than enough. There was only so much a guy could take, and the teacher, Mr. Iverson, was such a dick, no one could even blame Lance.

“Lance!” another shout came. “I will come up there and drag you out of the bed!”

With a grimace, Lance lolled his head over to the side to stare at his door, which remained partially open. That threat was not empty; Lance knew from personal experience that she would carry it out. With a sigh, Lance kicked his leg out lazily, shoving the blanket halfway down his body. A mistake, surely. Lance shivered as the cold morning air attacked his chest and arms, the warmth immediately escaping. Whining, Lance kicked the rest of the blanket off. He rolled over dramatically, as if it were the biggest inconvenience of his life. His legs spilled over the edge and slid along the side of the mattress until his bare feet hit the carpeted floor. Moving like molasses, Lance let his body slip out of the bed after his legs until he was just crouching next to the bed, huddled into a ball to preserve whatever remaining warmth he could scoop up. Lance stayed there for a long moment.

Suddenly, the door to the room clattered inward. Lance didn’t have to look up to know that it was Veronica, but he still pretended that he didn’t hear her entrance at all. “Lance,” her voice sighed. “You’re going to be late.”

“I’m quitting,” Lance muttered into his knees.

“What?” Veronica stepped closer and placed a hand on her hip.

Lance pressed his cheek into his knee and stared up at her through his blurry eyes, making no attempt to properly wake up. “I’m quitting life today. You can just dump my body into the compost bin,” he clarified.

Veronica clicked her tongue and stuck a foot out to lightly kick at Lance’s leg, jostling him and earning herself a protesting grunt. She was not impressed, if her exasperated groan was anything to go by. “Lance, stop being such a drama queen and get up! I’ll get _mamá,_ don’t think I won’t,” she threatened.

That got Lance immediately moving, because if there was one thing that Lance was more afraid of than facing a cold Monday morning, it was facing a cold Monday morning at the hands of Ms. McClain. She was one scary woman. Scary in the kindest and most gentle way, of course. Even thinking negative thoughts about her was a dangerous game because she could always tell, somehow.

Uncurling himself from his position on the floor, Lance stretched up and out. He forced his hands into the air as far as they could go until his back popped into place. A sigh escaped him and he relaxed once more. “Look at that,” Lance calmly, smiling at his sister kindly, “the sun is shining, the sky is bright, and I am ready to face the day.” Veronica’s arms were still on her hips and an eyebrow was raised as she watched Lance pretend like he wasn’t about to tumble over from the weight of his under-eye bags. Lance just smiled lopsided. And with that, he scooted past his sister’s unimpressed and judgemental stare until he was able to slip out of the room and down the hall.

It was always like that on Mondays. It wasn’t that Lance didn’t like to go to school and learn, because he did like it, but he just couldn’t imagine getting out of bed on a day like a Monday. What a horrendous activity. Still, every Monday, he managed enough inner strength and endured enough yelling from Veronica that he was able to pull himself together for long enough that he could get ready. Besides, Pidge and Hunk were waiting for him and he knew that if he didn’t go to school, they’d wonder if he was alright. Worrying his friends was never something that Lance wanted, so, Monday or no, Lance would go to school.

And yet, as Lance meandered his way down the hall and to the bathroom to remove his nightly face mask, he couldn’t help but think that this Monday was not the same as every other Monday. There was something off about it. He couldn’t quite place his finger on what, and in his tired and dazed slump it wasn’t like he was about to try to either, but it still incessantly nagged at the back of his mind.

He stared into the mirror with dead, bloodshot eyes, wondering to himself how people could be so cruel as to make others get up at such an early hour. His face was shimmering where the mask had been placed and his skin looked flawless, more so than usual. At least something good was coming from this forlorn Monday. He cracked a wide grin at his reflection. For as tired as he was, he didn’t look half bad. But when did he ever? Lance let the water run and leaned his face in, gently scooping the stream toward his face in order to erase the face mask. Once that was done, he grabbed a fresh towel from the closet and patted his cheeks dry. By that time, Lance almost looked like he was awake. All he needed was some food in him and a little morning care, then he would be ready to face the day as if he hadn’t ever been contemplating spending the day in bed.

The prickly feeling at the back of his neck, however, it persisted.

Lance left the bathroom, a newfound feeling of energy surging through him. His longs legs bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen where Veronica and his mother were milling about.

“Lance,” his mother frowned, “stop giving your sister a hard time!” She pointed a spoon at him with an air of authority before returning to mixing something in a little ceramic bowl.

“What?!” Lance squawked. He stared between the two of them, affronted. “She was the one who was bothering me!”

Veronica rolled her eyes and settled into the table with a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice. “It’s called waking you up. You know, because you can’t do it on your own,” she clicked her tongue impatiently.

“Well, thanks, but I didn’t ask for your ‘help,’” Lance made air quotations as he force the last word out. Veronica looked unimpressed, glaring at him full force.

His mother made a displeased noise, staring between the two of them. “If you had spent any longer in bed, Lance, I would have come woken you up myself,” she told him, raising an eyebrow that somehow managed to be more threatening than ten Veronica’s all judgementally looking at him.

“Ooh,” Veronica lowly hummed, a grin overtaking her face. “You almost got the slipper.” There was clear amusement ringing in her voice as she chirped at him and all Lance could do was snootily raise his nose and harrumph.

Veronica was always one to take things too seriously, but when Lance was involved, and more particularly, when he was being made fun of in some way, she always seemed to loosen right up. It was a sibling instinct of some kind, there was no other explanation. Lance would know since he did the exact same thing right back to her every chance he got. It had always been that way too, even when they were little.

Their mother gave one last stir to the bowl in her hands before stepping around the corner with purpose. She set the bowl right in front of Lance before giving a sharp pat to his shoulder. Lance lurched forward a little bit at the impact. His mother was a strong woman. “Eat up, you have school soon and you can’t work on an empty stomach,” she told him, smiling at him with a confidence that Lance found himself mimicking unintentionally.

“Thanks, _mamá,_ ” Lance called, forgetting all about the mini disagreement he had been having with his sister only moments before. With one solid scoop, Lance shovelled the oatmeal into his mouth and hummed loudly. Once he had swallowed, he loudly stated, “I could never go to school on an empty stomach when your food is so good.” He smiled back at her over his shoulder, sitting up a bit straighter.

“It’s just oatmeal, Lance,” his mother reminded him.

Lance shuffled in his chair to better look back at her. “Ah, but it’s made with love,” he happily added.

She continued back behind the counter to put away the cooking supplies that she had gotten out, although Lance could see the amused and loving smile on her face right before she turned her back to them.

When Lance spun back around in his seat to eat his oatmeal once more, his sister was glaring at him with a flat and unimpressed look. “Kiss ass,” she muttered under her breath.

Lance returned the comment with a smarmy-looking grin and a whispered, “What? I just love _mamá’s_ cooking.”

Veronica’s expression got even flatter, if that was possible. She looked about ready to toss something at Lance. Still, she said nothing, instead choosing to chat with their mother as she ate. Lance didn’t mind much. He just ate his oatmeal, giving his two cents here or there when he had something to say. Normally, Lance had much more to say and he would chat about whatever was happening in town, but not this time.

For the most part, his mind was focused on the pin pricks of something unexplainable that kept stabbing into the back of his mind, drawing him in and whispering warnings at him, none of which he could quite make out. The feeling was really starting to bother him and get to him. It was like an itch that was just under the skin where he couldn’t reach it. His eyebrows furrowed as he thought it over, attempting to reach a conclusion on the feeling. It was almost like a forgotten dream that tickled at the edge of his consciousness, just ever-so-slightly too far for Lance to grasp at it. There was a sort of static in his mind as he clawed at the feeling, mentally retracing his footsteps over and over again in an attempt to catch the prickling sensation in its own tracks. His eyes twitched as a cool wave of stings flowed over his head.

“Lance? Lance?” Veronica was calling to him. He wasn’t sure for how long she had been calling, but both her and his mother were looking at him with concern. And just like that, his mind cleared entirely. As if there was never a cloud in the sky of his mind, everything was bright again.

“Huh?” Lance dumbly blurted out, staring at Veronica with wide eyes.

She furrowed her eyebrows suspiciously. “Are you okay? You kind of disappeared there…” she cautiously informed him.

Lance nodded once, then again, quicker. He smiled easily, although the tentative looker would have been able to pull apart the pieces that gave away his nervousness. Kicking his chair back and standing smoothly, Lance recovered himself and his bowl of half-eaten oatmeal off the table. “Fine,” he said, “just thinking about that project I have due.” It was an obvious lie but it also could have just as easily been true. Veronica gave him another strange look, but Lance ignored it and retreated back to the kitchen when he cleaned out his bowl. The entire time, he pointedly ignored his mother’s worried look as well.

“Are you feeling sick, Lance?” she asked, stepping forward with her hand out as if she was going to check his forehead.

Lance ducked under her arm and gave his mother a quick kiss on the cheek. “No, _mamá,_ I’m fine. Just tired. You know how Mondays are,” he laughed, although it was distracted. He gave her another, more comforting smile. Glancing over to Veronica, he smiled to her too. Then, before anyone could question it too hard, Lance slipped past his mother again and hurried upstairs. Arriving at his room, Lance slipped inside and calmly shut the door behind him.

There was a moment of silence, everything was calm and quiet. No one downstairs seemed to be coming to check on him. Slowly, and yet not unexpectedly, like a drop of ink infecting a glass of clear water, the uneasy and knowing feeling returned to his mind. It slithered up his brain stem, prickling him along the way and alerting him. There was a warning in there. Something that told Lance to be on his guard and to pay attention. Lance did his best to ignore it. There was nothing new about the feeling, but it had been a long time since he had felt anything as strong as that. Something was wrong. Whatever had happened, it was bad. It was really bad. As long as Lance’s mind played cat and mouse with the notion of it, he wouldn’t be able to tell what it was.

With a look of confusion, Lance wandered over to his closet and picked out the first shirt he could find. Lance was the type of guy who planned his outfit out meticulously to make sure he was stunning every single day, but Lance couldn’t even pretend to care about what clothes he was picking on this day. Luckily, after retrieving a random pair of jeans, Lance found that he didn’t look that bad. Still, Lance grabbed his bomber jacket off the back his laundry chair and slipped it on, just to add an extra layer of protection from that weird eerie feeling.

Finally, Lance stood back and stared into the mirror. He smoothed out his shirt. With a nod, Lance grabbed his backpack and hurried out of the room. His feet thundered down the stairs in his rush to leave the house. Not only did he need to get to school, but he also needed to figure out what that weird feeling he had was and the best way to do that was to go investigate the town. Whatever terrible event had happened, it had happened in town. Lance was sure of that.

“Bye _mamá!_ Bye Veronica!” Lance called as he slipped his shoes on and whipped the front door open.

There was a clattering as his mother swept herself around the corner to stare at Lance. “Have you got everything?” she asked, a furrow to her brows.

Lance, with his hand still on the doorknob, sighed, “Yes, I have everything.”

A frown made its way over her face as she stared at him, one arm instinctually finding its was to her hip. “Your lunch?” she questioned, a superior air about her. “Did you grab it?”

Lance’s entire body sagged and he whined, “ _Yes, mamá,_ I grabbed it.”

She gave Lance another onceover, still not entirely convinced that he really was ready to leave. Lance’s feet shifted and bounced, both wanting nothing more than to hurry away and start his trek to school. “Alright, goodbye Lance. _Te quiero._ Have a good day!” his mother relented. She approached him with open arms, which Lance was too weak to not accept. He retracted his hand from the doorknob and happily, yet still hastily, hugged his mother. One quick kiss later, Lance was removing himself from his mother and heading back out the door.

 _“Te quiero, mamá._ Bye!” he tried again.

“Cya, nerd,” Veronica shouted back through a mouthful of oatmeal. Lance huffed a laugh to himself at the insult. It was filled with genuine love, even if Veronica wouldn’t ever admit it.

Lance shut the door behind him, not bothering to lock it since he knew his mother was right there to lock it behind him anyway. He spun on his heel and stared out at the strong mountain just across the street from his own house. Well, mountain was quite a bit more generous than what it deserved. More than anything, it was an overrated hill. It was a mound of dirt with trees on it, and if you really wanted to believe, it could maybe be a mountain, but not much of one. Still, it was the one great wonder in the town of Lionsville, which had no mountains to speak of. In a town that was nothing but solid planes of dirt and flat grassy fields, you tended to take what you could get, and Mount Altea was it.

Speaking of wide open nothingness, Lance began marching down the empty dirt trail leading up to their house from the road, completely lined by open fields full of vegetable gardens as far as the eye could see. They were all fresh and well taken care of, sparkling in the morning sun where the dew droplets were nestled. Lance could practically smell the vegetables that were ready to be picked as he passed them and they brought an air of happiness to him. It momentarily managed to drown out the stabbing stings in the back of his brain, but the farm always managed to take Lance’s mind away from things like that.

That was the work of Lance and his family. His mother and sister were both extremely hard-working, and for as long as Lance could remember, he knew them to be farmers. Lance was quite proud of what his family was known for and he wanted to help his family as often as he could in their family profession, but at the same time, he knew that he wanted to go to school and make something of himself there as well.

Seated on one of the posts in the fence that bordered the property, Lance could clearly see the back of a figure with a red leather jacket. His head was tilted back as he stared at the sky, his jet-black hair splaying out across his neck like a wild, untamed beast, which perfectly matched the person it belonged to. One of his legs was propped up on the fence, giving him a better position to study the clouds overhead. The soft flow of air sweeping past didn’t seem to affect him in the least, his hair remaining perfectly untouched.

And, just like every morning when Lance stood in the light breeze with the sun gently laying a blanket over the town and stared down the dirt trail at the boy on the fence post, his heart lurched forward, pulling him along. His feet moved calmly and with purpose but underneath that composure and that easy, morning smile, Lance’s heart was going a mile a minute and his palms were sweating at just the thought of the boy. Each electric tingle that sparked up Lance’s nerves and stole his breath away felt stronger the closer he got.

“Morning, Keithy! How’re you doing?” Lance greeted as he came up beside the fence post at the end of the road, his feet slowing to a stop but his heart continuing on as if he were sprinting.

“You haven’t heard the news,” came the reply. Not a single pause of consideration for a greeting from the other, just straight into whatever thing he urgently had to tell Lance. It wasn’t even a question, he just knew.

Lance’s eyes flicked up and met the incredible violets staring down at him. Time stopped for a moment, just as it always did when that vibrant gaze was directed at him. There was a mysterious, yet completely severe, squint to his eyes which was accompanied by the intense pull of his eyebrows. His mouth was set and sombre, holding back words and biting his tongue as he waited for Lance’s response. Black strands of hair fell around his shoulders and into his face, framing his face so naturally. It was a talent how he always looked like a model, even in his most serious state. Keith Kogane was truly beautiful.

“The news?” Lance echoed, confused. “No, what happened?” After a year of being in love with Keith, Lance had mastered the art of pretending he was totally not pining over him. It helped that Keith was oblivious to feelings. Anyone’s feelings on anything.

Keith’s head flicked up to the mountain across the street. “They found bones on Altea this morning,” Keith told him gravely.

That stinging sensation shocked Lance’s brain once more, tickling at his neck and raising all the hairs. Lance flinched visibly as it all came crashing into him. “They, what…? Bones? Were they human? Did someone die?” Lance started, his eyes instantly squinting up at the mountain.

Keith nodded, his gaze travelling back to the mountain as well. “The police are going out to investigate soon, so I’m not sure. The mountain is closed off. You can’t get much farther than the sign near the top. I think they’re trying to keep this whole thing a secret right now.”

“They can’t do that!” Lance protested.

Keith sighed and grumbled, “They can and they are.”

“That’s ridiculous! The town’s going to find out soon anyway. Nothing stays secret for long. Someone could stub their toe and it would be news in the same day. There’s no way they can cover up a death without anyone noticing. Hell, there’s no way that someone could accidentally die up there without anyone noticing,” Lance commented. He tried his best to will away the pain in the back of his neck but it only got worse the longer he stared toward the mountain. Finally, Lance tore his eyes away, instead choosing to focus them on Keith.

“I was up there earlier and…” Keith paused, his eyebrows furrowing further. He swallowed around his next words, choosing them carefully like it pained him to even say anything at all. “Lance, I don’t think it was an accident.” The words hung in the air, a stark contrast to the tense air of the conversation. Keith’s face scrunched up even more until it was hard to even look at him. “Those bones were… There were grooves in them. A lot of grooves,” he revealed.

“Grooves like…?” Lance urged. He took a hesitant step toward the fence post. His eyebrows pulled together.

“Like something sharp chipped them. In the chest,” Keith finished. That intense violet stare focused in on Lance again as he attempted to convey the severity of his message.

Lance stood there in silence, just meeting Keith’s steadfast eyes. “They were stabbed,” Lance concluded. A shiver ran up his spine.

Keith didn’t break his gaze. Slowly, he muttered, “I’m just saying I don’t like it.” His jaw worked in a circular motion as he grinded his teeth and pensively stared through Lance, lost in thought.

With the mountain being closed off, there would have been no way that anyone would have been able to get up there to see the bones, but trust Keith to do just that. It wasn’t that Keith liked to get into trouble, but he wasn’t one to sit back and watch things transpire while he waited for an answer. No, Keith was the type of guy who sought out his answers himself. It also helped that Keith lived on the mountain. He knew that place like the back of his hand. That was what was really getting to Lance about the entire ordeal. If Keith didn’t find the bones, then those bones weren’t meant to be found, and when things aren’t meant to be found, they’re hidden. Hidden bones don’t occur naturally, especially not in a small town like Lionsville.

The thing about small towns was that everyone knew everyone else. That was just how it was. Even if you wanted things to be secret, it was extremely difficult when you were around the nosiest people in the entire state. And it wasn’t that they were purposefully nosey. It wasn’t that all the snoopy people automatically decided to live there, it was a much simpler reasoning than that. Boredom made people creative. In a place where nothing happened, people made their own entertainment and their own drama, and if that meant becoming a gossip who took what they could get, then so be it. If you went to the store, you could be damn sure that every single person in that store knew every gritty detail of your life. They probably knew things that you didn’t even know about your own life. In the kindest way, of course. Well, mostly the kindest…

In a small town, everyone was always waiting. Mostly for things to happen. Nothing ever happened. Everyone always wanted something to happen. Even Lance, for as bright and excitable as he was, couldn’t help but find himself hoping something would happen, anything at all, just some event that would shake up Lance’s little snow globe of a world. This, however, was never what he meant when he wished for such an event.

Murder. Was that what they were dealing with? Who could have done that? There was no way someone could just be a murderer without everyone knowing about it, but at the same time, Lance couldn’t help but think that everyone could have done it. Whatever the motive, there was no better place to hide than in a town of people who would all never think the worst of you.

Because the thing about small towns was that everyone knew everyone else. At least, they thought they did. You could watch a person grow up from diapers all the way to adulthood and never truly know a damn thing about them. When people’s nosiness got the better of them, important secrets got shoved underground, and in a town of constant nosiness, it was only a matter of time before something was found in the dirt. It just so happened that that something was a pile of bones.

A shiver ran down Lance’s spine, like a spider scuttling along his skin. The prickling of his skin returned at full force. Lance couldn’t suppress the chills that wracked his body and dug their way into his brain. His vision blurred and went white for a moment, then returned. That was the feeling that had been chasing him all morning, and finally it had properly caught him. It was the bones, of course.

“Are you alright?” Keith asked.

Lance heavily blinked, then again. He willed his eyes away from the ground to meet Keith’s again. There was clear concern there as he watched Lance struggle to will the feeling away. “Fine…” he assured. His voice wasn’t entirely trustworthy.

Keith squinted at him. His eyes shifted over Lance’s form. There was a twitch in his hands that he couldn’t seem to satiate. Rather, he chose to run his nails along each other and underneath each other, anything to occupy the itch that had overtaken him. Keith only did that when he wanted to help and wasn’t sure how. Lance could almost feel Keith’s worry, palpable in the air, and it wasn’t making the feeling any better.

“I shouldn’t have told you about the bones,” Keith mumbled, turning his head away.

“No, I needed to know,” Lance blurted out. “I mean, I need to know. I’m okay, that’s what I’m saying.”

Keith was just glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. “I’ll investigate it,” he decided, as if he hadn’t heard Lance’s words.

“What? No, no, no. That’s not what I said to do.” Lance furrowed his eyebrows. “Don’t just go running into a crime scene, Keith.”

“I’ll be careful; the police won’t even know I’m there.”

Lance raised a hand to point at Keith in an attempt to get his words through Keith’s head. “That’s not the problem.”

“Then what?” Keith huffed.

Lance shuffled his feet and stood up straighter. Why did Keith always have to fight him? “What if you get hurt?” he suggested.

With a click of the tongue, Keith removed his fingers from where they had entangled amongst themselves and crossed his arms over his chest assertively and defensively. His back straightened, putting even more height between him and Lance. When Keith wasn’t seated on a fence post, he would never have had any height over Lance, and they both knew it. “I said I’d be careful.”

Lance narrowed his eyes further and swallowed thickly. “What if you find out something you didn’t really want to know?” he hissed. Keith looked taken aback, yet still defensive. “What if that something changes everything…”

“There are bones on that mountain, Lance. I live on that mountain. You live near that mountain. Everything has already changed,” Keith argued back in a low tone.

Lance was about to say something back to him when his attention was yanked away. From down the street, he could hear someone calling to him. “Lance! Lance, hurry up, or we’ll leave without you!” a younger girl shouted. Her hair glowed as the beating sun washed over it. The shine really highlighted just how much her hairstyle looked like she had rubbed a towel from the base of her neck to her forehead after getting out of the shower and called it good. Pidge, tech genius extraordinaire and hater of the outdoors. Lance couldn’t help but internally sigh in relief at the thought that she probably didn’t know about the bones. As nosy as she was – and she was nosy, even for the people in this town – there was no way she’d be on top of the happenings on the mountain. She hated that mountain and had only been up there the one time Lance had taken her to carve their names into mangled-looking trees.

“Yeah, man, we can’t wait forever!” the taller boy next to the girl called. He tugged on the bandana around his forehead and squinted down the dirt path in an attempt to see properly. Hunk, a teddy bear of a guy with a heart of gold. As smart as he was and as intuitive as he was, that didn’t mean he took conflict well, and bones on a mountain sure as hell meant some sort of conflict. Lance was assured that Hunk wasn’t already looking nervous because that meant that he didn’t know either.

Only Keith and the police seemed to know. That was good. Lance could keep this under wraps until the police couldn’t keep it secret anymore, and by then, Keith maybe would have figured something out. There was no reason to panic just yet, just like there was no reason to start a panic just yet. So, with one last lingering stare at Keith, who was still propped up on the fence post and watching Lance with something akin to concern, Lance nodded. It was a quick, almost unnoticeable nod that was meant just for Keith. If Keith was looking hard enough, he’d find the plea in Lance’s eyes that he remain safe and not investigate any crime scenes.

Keith wouldn’t listen though. He never did. His eyes softened at Lance anyway though, as if he were telling Lance that.

Then, Lance breathed in a huge gust of air and puffed out his chest. He forced a smile onto his face, although it wasn’t so hard when his friends were so cheerful. Even when he was worried, just the sight of them smiling was enough to make him feel at least hopeful. “If you think you can get away from these leggies then you’re in for a rude awakening!” he challenged. With that, Lance practically lunged down the road after his friends, who laughed hysterically and attempted to run away, but they were indeed in for a rude awakening. No one outran Lance’s leggies.


	2. Femur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo, welcome back. The mystery continues to pick up, I promise.

Lance dumped his bag into the open space on the floor right next to his desk and plopped down into his seat. He sighed heavily, although he tried to keep it to himself. The last thing Lance needed was someone with a big nose trying to figure out what occupied his thoughts.

Most days, the resident of his mind was Keith, and that was dangerous enough for people to know about on its own, but this day was different. Well, actually, it really wasn’t. Lance was still, as always, thinking about Keith, except this time it wasn’t in that dreamy, flushed-face, type of way. Rather, it was with an eerie and worried air about it. The idea that Keith was going to investigate a possible murder really bothered Lance, not just because there was a possible murder to investigate at all, but because Keith was the type to completely ignore any form of danger, even when it stared him in the face. Keith, for as healthy and intelligent as he was, had no sense of self preservation. He was reckless. The kind of guy who died young. Exactly that kind.

On top of that, who had been murdered? Lance had no idea who it could have been. There weren’t that many people living in town at one time. Surely, he would have noticed if someone had gone missing suddenly. People didn’t leave the town often, with or without notice. Rarely did people die of natural causes, let alone, of murder. Lance knew everyone in the town at this point, and he couldn’t think of a single person who he hated enough to want to hurt. There were some terrible and awful people, sure, every town had them. Lance could make a list of people who he wished would move away, but he would never go out of his way to hurt them, and he was nearly sure that they wouldn’t go out of their ways to hurt him either. Well, he had been sure. Now… he really wasn’t…

Before, Lance trusted the people of the town. Not as far as he could throw them, and definitely not enough to believe they’d all catch him in a trust fall, but he trusted them in that they were all kind and good people. He trusted that they wanted the best for him and that they would help him if his life was in danger. The community was small, meaning it was tightknit and strong. Still, Lance hadn’t been living in the small town for long. His family had been moving a lot since his father had left them, never staying in one place for too long. Lionsville was just the newest town on the list, although his mother seemed to like the simplicity of it more than any other place they had been to, so Lance honestly had high hopes for the little town. It was still too early to tell, however. Even though Lance had gotten the gist of living in a small town, he was still new to the place, so what did Lance really know about who could be a murderer and who could have been murdered?

But that was the thing too. Maybe Lance hadn’t ever met the person who was murdered. Maybe he’d never met the person who had done the murdering. There was no telling how long those bones had been there, on Mount Altea. It could have been someone that Lance knew, but it could also just as easily be a person long gone and forgotten, never discovered until now, decades later. From the information that Keith had given Lance – which wasn’t much since Keith didn’t really know all that much to begin with – he really couldn’t be sure where the bones were found. That made a world of difference. They could have been hidden so incredibly well that no one noticed they were even there for years and years. It could potentially mean that there was no killer in town, that there never was a killer in town because the incident had occurred so far back in time that the town hadn’t even been created yet. Of course, that didn’t completely quell Lance’s fears, but it did oddly comfort him to think that it hadn’t been recent.

Except, what if it was recent? That didn’t necessarily even mean there was a killer. Was it a split second and panicked decision or had it been intentional? Was it a one-off situation or was there a trend that no one had caught onto? There was nothing yet to even suggest that it had been murder. Aside from Keith’s observation about the grooves, that is. Maybe it wasn’t a murder though. It could have been a freak accident while on a hiking trip. Perhaps a suicide, albeit, a gruesome one, and maybe even a drug induced one. Those bones could have been caused by any number of things, really.

Those bones weren’t necessarily human, either. Now that Lance thought about it, the police might have just been confused. Keith, himself, might have just been confused. It was a little difficult to mix up a human skull with a deer skull, Lance would admit, but maybe there was a hope that it was just an injured animal that had been left to the crows and the weather for a number of years. All possibilities that were just as likely, if not more likely, than a killer living in the town. The prickle at Lance’s brainstem flared up again and he pretended he hadn’t noticed it.

Basically, Lance was at a crossroads on what to believe. There wasn’t enough information to go off of. In the end, what Lance was most worried about was the fact that Keith was investigating this strange and mysterious case. Eerie danger followed that pile of bones, Lance could feel it in the back of his brain like a claw scraping and scratching its way across Lance’s skull.

Before Lance could delve too deep into his thoughts, the bell rang out through the room. It wasn’t that loud, but it immediately instigated the clattering of everyone and everything shifting and shuffling around the room. Chairs scraped across the tiled floor, jangling and clacking all over the class. Some people were still talking to each other and laughing as they settled into their seats. Desks were pushed back into place from where they had been bumped or pressed together. Some kids sighed heavily or groaned at the prospect of beginning yet another day of school.

It was a large classroom with many different desks, but that was the thing about being in a small town; there were only two classrooms in the school. One was for grades one to six and the other was for grades seven to twelve. Lance, being in his graduating year, was one of the oldest and biggest kids in the class. Being around so many younger kids wasn’t difficult, but it did make him feel more mature since they were much goofier than he was, although it also kept him young. Aside from the individual classrooms, the desks were never divided up by grade. The teacher hadn’t ever done that, because as long as people were doing their work and learning, it didn’t matter who was sat next to who. Everyone was friends with everyone else in the small town anyway. Lance’s own friends were both younger than he was. Lance, at eighteen years old, was one of three kids graduating that year. Hunk, who was seventeen, was in his eleventh year of school and Pidge, fifteen, was in grade nine. Despite Pidge being an incredibly intelligent and intuitive person who could do a lot, she still wasn’t able to skip grades since she didn’t know everything she needed to know.

So, as the teacher entered the classroom and scanned the students, Lance tilted his chair back until his elbow was rested against Pidge’s desk as she sat behind him. Hunk was sat on Pidge’s left and noticed Lance getting ready to whisper something back to them. Since the teacher always went through what the lessons were for the day starting with the sevens and working his way up, Lance had enough time to frantically mutter something back to his friends.

“What did I have for homework?”

Pidge’s body deflated and Hunk’s face turned disappointed. “Lance, we don’t even have the same homework, how would I know what you were supposed to be doing?” Pidge complained with a dead look in her eye. She pressed her glasses farther up her face.

“Because you’re a genius…?” Lance tried, raising a trying eyebrow. Pidge wasn’t buying it.

“You had that essay about Hamlet,” Hunk chimed in from his seat. He gave a small smile as he hoped that the reminder of this homework would kickstart Lance’s mind. Tilting his head forward, he expected Lance to pull the essay out of his bag with a triumphant smile. Then, Lance would brag about how skillfully written his essay was, Pidge would rip it out of his hands, read the first sentence, and already spot a spelling error. Lance would shriek, rip the paper out of her hands, and then start wailing. But it would be just fine because Hunk always had his white out on stand by.

That didn’t happen though. None of it. Rather, Lance’s eyes grew wide in fear and he stared dead ahead at Hunk, just frozen. “Oh no…” Lance breathed.

Hunk closed his eyes and sighed sadly. “Lance…”

“Okay, so,” Lance started, “maybe I forgot that assignment existed.” He cringed at the words that had come out of his mouth, knowing just how irresponsible it sounded. It was irresponsible. Lance had all weekend to do that essay and he hadn’t written a single word.

“Lance?!” Hunk complained.

Pidge just shook her head. “Disappointed, but not surprised.”

“It’s fine, maybe he won’t remember. He has so many grades already, it’s fine,” Lance assured himself. He, of all people, would know that that wasn’t going to happen. Mr. Iverson never forgot when someone was supposed to hand something in. After twelve years of learning from the guy, Lance knew the truth better than anyone. Pidge and Hunk both gave him a raised eyebrow, knowing just as well as Lance did that he really didn’t stand a chance. Lance sighed heavily and lowered his forehead against Pidge’s desk. “I’m doomed.”

“Maybe he’ll give you an extension…?” Hunk suggested. It was an empty comfort. Iverson would never.

Pidge flicked her pencil against Lance’s head, causing him to yelp and shift his head around to glare at her. “Maybe he’ll be merciful and won’t expel you,” she muttered. It didn’t even sound like a joke with the way she said it, making Lance even more nervous than he was before.

Suddenly, there was cracking of a ruler as it was smacked against the side of a desk. Everyone quieted down from where they had been whispering to each other. Heads whipped around to the front with wide eyes. Iverson was standing at the head of the classroom with the same stern look plastered over his face that seemed to be engrained into his very muscles. Lance wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he was born scowling with a cool sting to his single eye.

“We have an announcement,” Iverson punctuated, raising the ruler off the desk.

Lance slowly slid around in his chair to properly face Iverson, lest the strict man narrow in on him. The last thing Lance needed was to be giving Iverson reason to focus on him. That guy already had an uncanny ability to sniff out people who hadn’t done their homework. Or maybe he was sniffing out fear. It was hard to tell, frankly. Lance swallowed thickly, praying the announcement wasn’t that Lance was being voted off the island and that, instead, it was that Iverson wasn’t able to accept any homework at this time because he was backed up on marking. That would be some kind of miracle.

Except, before Lance could get his hopes up too high, the door opened. With a clunky and steadying step across the threshold of the door, the town sheriff entered the room. Ice immediately shot through Lance’s veins, cracking and freezing him from the inside out with the realization that what was happening was actually happening, there, just before him. His hands instantly clenched and his throat ran dry. Everything that Keith had said to him that morning flooded his head like a wave. It was as if Lance had been tossed into the ocean, water pressing in on him from all sides. He did his best to hide the fear that was painted over his face.

The police sheriff marched to the front of the room, careful not to knock his hip against any of the desks on his way there. Stared over all the students with a cold and merciless intensity. Lance could feel it in his very soul. “Good morning, students,” the sheriff began. His voice was low and it echoed off every wall in the room perfectly. It had to be ringing in everyone else’s ears too, not just Lance’s, right? “I’m Sheriff Zarkon with the Lionsville Police Department. I am here to let you all know that, until further notice, Mount Altea is off limits to the general public. This is for your own safety. That being said, anyone who is caught up there will face serious consequences. Have I made myself clear?”

There were a series of little nods from a couple students around the room. Sheriff Zarkon scanned everyone, meeting each eye that was unfortunate enough to be in his line of sight. Lance was one of those people. He felt a chill run down his spine when the darkened, hardened man looked to him.

“Why can’t we go on the mountain?” one brave soul asked, his hand raising into the air with a shakiness to it.

Sheriff Zarkon homed in on him like his arm was a beacon. There was a tense silence as the sheriff just stared at him. Lance could barely breathe with the molasses air that surrounded him, but he already regretted asking that question on the other kid’s behalf. “Rockslide,” Sheriff Zarkon answered simply. There was nothing in his voice to suggest he was lying, but Lance’s heart sped up until it was practically deafening him to anything that might have been said.

Rockslide. There was no rockslide. Lance knew there was no rockslide. It was a body. It was a person. There was a dead person on Mount Altea. Lance knew that already. He had all the clues. The feeling in the morning, Keith’s information and the seriousness in his eyes, the fact that he couldn’t let any of it go. Lance knew, he just didn’t want to accept the truth. And here was the police chief, standing before them all, telling them to avoid a mountain because it was dangerous, just one more clue to add to the pile.

“If that’s all, I’ll let you get back to your lesson,” Sheriff Zarkon concluded. He nodded once.

“Yes, thank you, Sheriff,” Iverson dismissed. “We’ll begin class now.”

And that was it. The police officer left the classroom silently, his large frame just barely making it through the doorway. Everyone in the class was already bored. They were already flipping through their notes with bored looks on their faces, already getting assignments out, already forgetting about it. Lance wasn’t. That prickling sensation wracked his brain painfully and with an unrivalled force. Someone was dead on that mountain. Murdered? Maybe. Probably. The point was that there was a dead body up there. This made it all so much realer.

“McClain?” a sharp voice cut through Lance’s thoughts.

Lance jerked, staring wide-eyed and suspicious at the teacher, who was squinting back at him with his single eye. “Huh?”

“Where’s your essay on Hamlet?” There was an accusatory tone in his voice.

“I… I need an extension…” Lance mumbled. There was a collective intake of breath from the class.

The forbidden words had been spoken. It was too late. Lance gulped.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Lance exited the classroom with his head heavy and his eyelids barely keeping themselves up. He heaved his tired body out of the school as the ending bell rang in his ears. Pidge and Hunk followed closely behind him, neither of them anywhere near as weary.

“So, that was…” Hunk started, staring off into the distance, wide-eyed.

“Hard to watch,” Pidge finished for him.

“Embarrassing,” Lance chimed in.

Hunk winced. “I was going to say ‘awkward,’ but those are also true.”

Everyone knew that Iverson was a hardass without an ounce of care for how he hurt people. If you didn’t bring in what you needed to bring in, on the day it was supposed to be brought in, you were sure to get absolutely demolished. Funny enough, that was exactly what had happened to Lance. It wasn’t the first time that Iverson had steamrolled him in front of the class, but that didn’t mean that it was any less terrible. The things that guy said were enough to make anyone cry, so no one could really blame Lance for tearing up a little once Iverson was done ranting about how useless Lance was and how pointless his future was.

“Are you alright, Lance?” Pidge asked, staring at him sympathetically through the tops of her round glasses.

Lance nodded and glanced away, feigning a smile. “Yup, it’s no skin off my back,” he answered. His heart wasn’t in it.

“Are you sure? We can go hang out at the park and get ice cream if you want?” she tried.

Hunk smiled and placed a comforting hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Yeah, Lance, you deserve it! We could all go to my place too, if you’d rather? I’ll make cookies!”

Lance stared at both his friends’ smiling faces, encouraging him to cheer up. His smile fell into a more normal and natural one that didn’t tug uncomfortably at his cheeks as he held it in place. They were great friends and they just wanted the best for Lance, he knew that. Still, his feet dragged when he walked and his shoulders slumped forward. He wasn’t exactly a broken man, but he wasn’t a whole one either. Ice cream and cookies both sounded really good, he had to admit, but what he was really craving was a milkshake. A good ol’ chocolate milkshake and some wise advice. As wise as his friends were, and they were wise, he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to send everyone into a panic just yet. Pidge was the nosey type who would sneak her way up the mountain, much like Keith would, and Hunk was the type to worry that everyone was the killer. He would be jumping out of his skin every time someone so much as spoke to him if he learned about the possibility of a serial killer.

And so, Lance shook his head and sighed, “I’m sorry, guys, I promised Ronnie I’d help her garden when I got home. She’s trying to get everything ready for the market coming up. I have to pick up a few things from the shops.” The lie fell easily off his tongue, but that didn’t mean he was proud of it. Pidge and Hunk knew how much the market meant to Lance and his family, so they never got in the way of that. It felt gross to lie about that just so he could get away for awhile. With everything that was on his mind though, maybe it was justified this one time.

“Aw, I’m sorry, Lance,” Hunk pouted. “Maybe next time though.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed. “Bye, guys!” He side-stepped his friends and began heading for the road that led to the town’s main row of shops. He gave one last wave over his shoulder, accompanied by a smile, just enough to throw his friends off the scent that something was wrong.

They returned the gesture kindly before trekking down the other path away from the school which would take them home. “Bye!” the pair called, nearly in unison.

Once more, Lance continued down the trail. He kicked his feet into the dirt as he went, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. His mind wandered back to the mountain again, as if there was a string tied around the throat of his thoughts and it kept tugging them back. At the very least, Lance forced himself to think about the diner that he was heading for.

Lance had a lot of support at home. Veronica would help him in half an instance, his mother would drop whatever she was doing to come help him out, that wasn’t the problem at all, because he knew he could go to them if he needed. Lance trusted his family above all else. It was just that, while they would help, they would also try to insert themselves into the problem and make Lance’s issue into their issue. Which was handy in some situations, but not this one. What Lance needed was some advice that didn’t force anything on him. And there was one person in all of Lionsville that Lance always knew he could count on for that type of advice; Allura.

She was a strong-willed woman who wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of what she wanted. Nothing could ever bring her down, and that was just how it had always been. She reminded him a bit of Keith in that regard, because she was a pillar that stood through everything and got right back up when something shoved her down. There was something extremely selfless about the way she approached everything. Even when something hurt her, the first thought she had was always how the outcome would affect everyone else. Lance had found himself, more than once, reminding Allura that she was allowed to feel for herself and was allowed to make mistakes. Lance used to believe that he and Allura could have been something if she wasn’t dating her boyfriend from out of town, and if Lance’s heart didn’t already get snatched away by Keith, but now Lance just saw her as another sister.

So, with that in mind, Lance headed to Sal’s Diner where he knew he would find Allura on her shift. His feet carried him through the town, heavy and weighted as they moved. Each step he took made a hollow tapping sound against the cement of the sidewalk and Lance let himself be captured by that noise. Thoughts filtered in and out of his mind, some about the mountain, about his friends, about Keith, about Allura, about everything that had happened up to this point in his day. Until, finally, through the cozy traffic of main street, Lance found himself outside the diner. Lance stared at the sign above the front entrance, then he glanced in through the window. There were two people sitting in a booth and another three people each at their own table around the diner. Over all, it was pretty quiet there. Not that that was surprising, since the town was so small, but Lance was still comforted by the emptiness.

Pressing the door inward, Lance entered the shop. A rush of cold air washed over him as he stepped over the threshold. The air conditioning added to the cool vibe of the diner with everything being so white and pristine. There was nothing homey about the place, it offered no comfort, but it did create a sense of laid back, trendy carelessness. Lance quite enjoyed the atmosphere, and if it were more popular then like it was on Friday’s and Saturday’s, then the entire place would tie itself together perfectly.

Lance wasn’t focused on that this time though. Instead, he simply marched inside and took a cushioned seat at the little bar near the front. The chair swivelled when he placed his weight on it and Lance kicked his feet into the foot stand that was halfway down the post holding it up. Elbows propped onto the bar, Lance rested his chin on his palm and scouted out Allura. After a moment, she emerged from the back of the kitchen with a tray in her hand.

“Lance!” she greeted, a small smile on her face. “I didn’t expect to see you here today. Give me a moment, I’ll return.” With that, she confidently maneuvered her way through the diner and to the table with one of the singular people awaiting their meal. She delivered the burger and fries, then approached Lance at the bar once more. Her silver-tinted ponytail bounced as she moved quickly and apron fluttered when she turned. The clacking of her heels punctured the bopping beat that flowed from the speakers. “So, what can I get you?” she asked.

“A chocolate milkshake would be great, Allura,” Lance requested.

Allura stared at him a moment, the smile on her face slowly disappearing. “Are you alright, Lance?”

Flicking his head up a bit, almost defiantly, Lance furrowed his eyebrows in faux confusion. “Huh?” he uttered.

“No cheesy pickup line or over-the-top grin?” Allura teased, a look of concern in her eyes. “Something must be bothering you.”

“My pickup lines aren’t cheesy…” Lance muttered. A smile worked itself across his face anyway. “I just… My mind is elsewhere today. I’m worried about Pidge and Hunk,” _and Keith._ Lance didn’t say the last part out loud, but he thought it just as strongly.

Allura nodded along as she moved behind the bar to start making Lance’s milkshake. The chocolatey milk gushed out of the machine and into the cup. Normally, Lance would have his eyes glued to that delicious mixture, his mouth watering and a wild smile on his face, but on those days, he was normally with his friends as well. His heart just wasn’t in it this time, and neither was his mind. Allura still stood somewhat to the side to give Lance a view of the milkshake like she always did. Her eyes darted from the milkshake machine back to Lance quickly to show that she was listening, but Lance knew she was listening even if she didn’t do that. Lance carried on with his worried rambling.

“The sheriff came by our school today. He wanted to warn everyone not to go up the mountain right now,” he told her.

She interjected then, bringing Lance’s milkshake along with her, “I heard about that too. A warning was issued to everyone in town, I believe. A rockslide, wasn’t it?” Allura grabbed a straw from the little container by the front and pushed it through the packaging. She held the open end out to Lance, who pulled the straw out from the packaging and plopped it into his milkshake.

“What if it wasn’t a rockslide?” Lance muttered, staring directly into his milkshake as he stirred it around with his straw.

Allura paused before she replied with a hesitant and unsure, “What do you mean?”

Lance tilted his head to the side until his neck started to hurt, almost like he was weighing out the thoughts in his head before coming to a decision about which one he wanted to bring up first. “Maybe the reason they don’t want us on the mountain is something else,” he suggested gently.

For a moment, Lance just stared at Allura’s unmoving face, then, he watched as that same bright smile pinched at her cheeks again. “Are you saying they’re hiding something on the mountain? What, like buried treasure?” she laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

Lance took a sip of his milkshake. He swallowed it and stared at Allura a bit more seriously in the hopes that she would listen a little more carefully this time. “Where on that mountain is there even room for a rockslide to happen, Allura?” he hissed, too urgently, too much.

This time, Allura stepped back. She scanned Lance’s face. Her eyebrows were pulled together and there was a set to her lips that told Lance she was trying to determine what was happening in the conversation, because she was clearly missing something. “The waterfall, perhaps…” she stated cautiously.

Lance held her eye a moment longer. That feeling itched at his brain again. “Okay,” he finally settled on. His eyes fell to his milkshake. “You’re right.”

“Lance…” she started, but Lance cut her off.

“I’m just upset because I like to hang out on the mountain and now I can’t,” he lied. There were so many lies easily spilling over his lips that day and Lance didn’t like it. He didn’t like lying to people.

“Oh,” Allura bluntly said. A small smile worked onto her face once more. “Well, don’t worry, Lance. They’re just trying to make sure it’s safe so you don’t hurt yourself again.”

Lance let himself be carried away in the uplifting mood that Allura was trying to enact. He let her get away from the more serious things that Lance was attempting to express. Her smile was mirrored on Lance’s face. “When have I ever hurt myself?” Lance’s usual teasing grin brightened, even as his mind stuck to the dark thoughts that had been haunting him all day.

“You broke your arm climbing trees up there. I remember that. You shouldn’t have been up there alone in the first place,” Allura scolded.

Lance was about to retort that he hadn’t been alone, Keith had been there with him, but he caught himself before the words could make it into the air. It didn’t much matter anyways, a customer at one of the tables was attempting to flag down Allura. She raised a hand to them in indication that she would be right there, then turned to Lance. “Hold on.” And she was off to help them. Lance’s mind stewed in her absence, and, much like it did no matter where he was or what he was doing, it circled right back to that firecracker of a boy named Keith who was probably still on that mountain.


	3. Sternum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, y'all!

When Lance returned home that night, it was late. He hadn’t meant to spend that much time out in the town. It wasn’t even all spent at the bar chatting with Allura in between bouts of her actually doing her job, Lance had decided to wander the town at some point as well. The air was fresh when it flowed past his face and through his hair, which Lance was thankful for. It cleared his mind even more than his conversation with Allura had. Lance hadn’t even been keeping track of the time. Or maybe he was, in the back of his mind, and he just didn’t want to return home yet. It wasn’t uncommon for Lance to get lost in the town on a breezy night when there was a lot on his mind, and that always took hours because it wasn’t easy to get lost in Lionsville. Lance always managed.

It wasn’t dark out, that was the good part. Still, that didn’t mean much to Lance’s mother. She was ready to lampoon Lance’s ass no matter what the sky looked like. As Lance walked through the door, he immediately heard his mother call out to him. “Lance? Is that you?” There was a clatter of footsteps as she rushed out from the kitchen.

“Yeah, _mamá,_ I’m home,” Lance assured. He dropped his school bag by the front door with a thud and kicked off his high tops before meeting his mother.

She stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed and concerned. Her face quickly melted into one of relief and she sighed, letting her eyes slip closed in time with the hand that reached up and pressed into her heart. When she opened her eyes again, there was an unpleasantly upset fire there. Lance barely had time to register it before she was railing into him. “Where have you been? Were you up on that mountain again?”

“No, I–” Lance began before getting interrupted.

“Did you not hear no one is allowed up there? There was a rockslide, Lance, it’s dangerous!” Her hands were on her hips as she advanced on Lance. She grabbed his face by the chin, her fingernails somewhat digging into Lance’s jaw, although he didn’t complain. Twisting Lance’s head back and forth, she inspected his face.

“I didn’t go up the mountain, I was in town,” Lance tried to say as she inspected him for injuries. His mother had a habit of checking him for injuries no matter where he was if he returned home late. It was a nice gesture, at least, but a little unnecessary in Lance’s opinion.

She pulled away then, a weary look in her eye. “In town?” she repeated.

“I went to Sal’s Diner with Pidge and Hunk and we got talking with Allura. I meant to call but I got distracted, I’m sorry. Pidge was showing us this crazy trick she could do with a milkshake, a roll of wire, some tin foil, and a battery. It was insane, you really had to be there.” Lance laughed, attempting to employ some of his usual confident charm. He rubbed his arm nervously and attempted to think of a single person that day that he hadn’t lied to. There weren’t a lot. Lance wasn’t one to lie about everything like this, but there he was, lying. He had his reasons though, he had those feelings in the back of his head that something was off about this day, about that mountain, about those bones that Keith knew about.

His mother seemed pleased enough with that answer. She nodded along, the unsure look dissipating from her eyes once again. “Milkshakes? Before dinner?” she questioned.

Lance guiltily glanced to the staircase as if he would have been able to get away without her noticing. “Sorry, it was to lighten the mood.” He quirked his lip to the side. It could have been a smile or a nervous twitch, there was no telling.

“What? Today wasn’t a good day? I know you’re upset about the mountain, Lance, but that doesn’t mean you have to spoil a good dinner!” She frowned.

Quickly trying to rectify his words, Lance openly looked to his mother. “No, it wasn’t just the mountain, Mr. Iverson just… got really upset about my essay today… I swear that guy has such a stick up his butt.”

Mrs. McClain swatted Lance on the arm. “Don’t say such things. Not that you’re wrong, though. That man should not be working with children.” Her eyebrows furrowed in frustration. She really wasn’t a fan of Lance’s teacher, but then again, who was? There wasn’t anyone in town who didn’t completely agree he was a hardass. It just also happened that he was the only one qualified to teach that many grades. Teachers weren’t very common in such a lazy little town where nothing ever changed. “If you need help with your homework, Lance, you should just ask me or your sister. We can help you. Believe it or not, we’ve both written essays before.” There was a tinge of sarcasm in her voice to illustrate how much of a ridiculous notion it was that Lance wouldn’t ask his family for help.

Lance huffed a genuine laugh. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll just… ask for help next time…” he agreed, although he still found it a bit embarrassing when he needed help on anything. The problem wasn’t even that he couldn’t write an essay, it was just that he had forgotten to.

“And stay away from that mountain for awhile, yeah? It’s for your own safety.”

With a sigh, Lance nodded. “Yes, _mamá,_ I’ll stay away.”

“You’re always goofing off up there,” she grumbled. “The least you could do is bring your friends up there with you, but instead you decide to worry your mother. I thought for sure you’d ignored the rockslide warning.” With her hands back on her hips, Lance’s mother retreated back into the kitchen. “Go help your sister in the garden,” she called back over her shoulder.

“Alright, I’m on it!” Lance saluted to nobody in particular. He smiled brightly as he retrieved his boots from the closet near the front door and slipped into them. Normally, Lance wouldn’t be nearly as enthusiastic to go out into the yard and yank some veggies out of the ground, but on this day, Lance ached for something that would be able to repair all the lies he was telling as well as get his mind off the bones. It was still insane to think about at all.

After getting himself ready, Lance exited the front door once again and began to walk around the side of the house. There, crouched down in the dirt with a strain in her arms, was Veronica. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail to keep it out of her face as she tugged on some carrots. There was a basket of twisted and bent carrots, each covered in spots of dirt. They looked delicious and just the sight of them made Lance’s mouth water. Even with the milkshake, Lance could feel his stomach excitedly grumble. Lance trudged his way through the fields to meet up with Veronica.

As he was making his way over to where she was, he glanced at the sky, then back down to the crops. It was still light out enough that Lance could see the fields around him, but it was definitely starting to get darker. The sun was going down in the distance, signalling the end of the day. He stared dreamily out at the horizon, relishing in the feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere on the edge of town. The empty, open fields that surrounded the house used to make Lance uncomfortable, like they were a beacon that drew in murderers and they were going to get killed in their little house without anyone even knowing about it. That never happened though, and slowly, Lance started to relax. He even came to find comfort in the fact that they were on the outskirts where no one else often travelled. Lance’s eyes trailed over to the mountain once more. Perhaps he had relaxed too soon.

“Lance! Finally! Geez, you were gone forever!” Veronica complained when Lance got close enough for her to notice his presence. She leaned back on her heels and brushed the loose dirt off her blue jeans. Her head fell back and she squinted up at Lance. “Where the hell were you?”

“Hanging out with my friends. Something you wouldn’t know anything about,” Lance commented. He smirked as she glared flatly at him.

Unimpressed with Lance’s quip, she pointed at the carrots in the ground. “Get down here and help or I’ll shove you into the dirt.”

Lance snickered to himself as he settled into the dirt next to Veronica. He gripped the stem of one of the carrots that Veronica hadn’t pulled out yet and started helping with the vegetable collection.

They didn’t stay out in the garden for too long since it was only Lance, Veronica, and their mother. There were only so many vegetables that could be eaten by that many people before they started turning into leftovers. Besides, it was getting later and the sun was going down. Dinner had to be made eventually, as well. So, for the most part, Lance and Veronica just collected a basket full of carrots, some potatoes, and a tomato or two. Nothing too crazy. They would still have to bring in all the crops for the upcoming market, but there was still time for that.

Veronica had finished filling her basket before Lance, leaving him there to fill his own basket while she went inside to deliver the fruits of their labour to their mother. Or rather, the vegetables of their labour. Lance stuck his tongue out at her as she left but she only laughed maniacally. It wasn’t like he was too far behind her, but it was just the principle of her completing the task before him, even if she did start first.

Once Lance was done and all the vegetables had been collected, Lance stood up from his spot in the dirt. His knees were cramped and they hurt when he stretched them out, but slowly, the feeling returned to his legs. Shaking them out a little, Lance sighed in relief. There was dirt on his pants. He tried his best to brush that off but it really wasn’t doing much. With a frown, Lance decided he would wash them the next day. He grabbed his basket, stared out at the horizon again where the sun was just starting to set, and clomped back to the house in his work boots. After he exited the fields, Lance made sure to pause in the grass and wipe his feet off a little. They didn’t need more dirt in the house than there already was. Speaking of dirt, Lance would need to really wash the vegetables off too. He thought about that as he rounded the corner of the house.

Except his thoughts were cut extremely short when he came face to face with a man who he most certainly wasn’t expecting to be there. His heart leaped into his throat and he opened his mouth to scream, startling backwards in fear as he did. He dropped the basket immediately, practically tossing it at the random stranger. A hand roughly shoved itself into Lance’s face, covering his mouth and cutting off his scream before it could even begin.

“Lance, quiet!” the guy hissed.

It was at that point that Lance’s brain caught up with the situation and he could properly see, even in the dark, that it was Keith. His dishevelled bangs hung in his face more than usual, obscuring his eyes, which were on fire with intensity. He looked almost winded, but not in the way that one was when they were exercising heavily, this was a frantic, almost panicked sort of shortness of breath. Still, though, the pinks and purples that covered the sky made his skin glow angelically, almost supernaturally.

“Keith, what’re you doing?” Lance whispered back. His knees felt weak. That wasn’t uncommon around Keith, but this time, it was from the heart attack that he had just experienced.

Without answering, Keith grabbed Lance’s wrist and yanked him around the house. Lance tripped over his own feet and released a startled noise as he was guided along. The basket remained in the grass where Lance had flung it, vegetables strewn about everywhere. Lance gave a quick glance back over his shoulder at the fallen food. He whipped his head back around when his toe got caught on a dip in the road. Catching himself, Lance continued on. His boots kicked up dirt as he was led down the main trail leading away from his house and towards the main road. Lance’s feet thudding against the ground mixed with his own panting were the only sounds to be heard and it really condensed Lance’s mind, forcing him to be aware of himself, there, with Keith. The cool, night air flowed over his face, chilling him to the bone through his thin t-shirt. It suddenly seemed so much darker than it had before. Shadows danced over the ground in time to Lance’s movements. It unsettled Lance a little bit more than he had thought it would to see the way his body jerked its way down the trail.

Lance turned his attention back to Keith, watching him rush along and trying to keep up as best he could. Keith’s hands were cold. So cold. Ice seeped through Lance’s skin and into his veins. As much as Lance always wanted to hold Keith’s hand properly and never let go, the feeling of Keith’s touch was like frostbite. Even though Lance could tell that he was grabbing Lance with all his might, there was hardly any pressure. It was like Keith was just hovering his hand as close to Lance’s skin as he could, featherlight and faint. Lance relished in the feeling anyway.

Once they reached the end of the dirt path, Keith steered Lance off the path entirely with a quick jerk to the right. Lance squeaked and tumbled behind a giant boulder that was at the front of the property. He landed in the grass, his knee smacking into the ground hard. Groaning, Lance glared up at Keith. “You could have warned me,” he complained, shifting his legs around until he was properly seated.

Keith, who was creeping over the top of the boulder and bobbing his head around like he was looking for something, just shushed Lance again without even turning back to look at him. Lance conceded, confused and more than a little freaked out. He flicked his eyes back to the house, hoping the entire time that his family hadn’t noticed him racing down the driveway just to crouch behind a giant rock for seemingly no reason.

And next to him, Keith continued to watch over the boulder. His eyes were laser focused in on something that Lance couldn’t see, but it must have been extremely interesting and important because the guy hardly blinked. With his legs folded under him, Lance couldn’t maneuver enough to see what Keith was hunting for. He shifted his body back to the point where he was more or less just laying down. There was still nothing visible except part of the darkened street. Coming back up, Lance stared at Keith again.

“What’re you even looking at?” Lance questioned.

Keith dropped back behind the boulder and turned to Lance. “Come here, look,” he told him.

Lance’s eyebrows drew together but he listened anyway. After getting up from the ground, Lance shuffled closer to Keith to see over the boulder. There was really no reason to move toward Keith, but Lance was just considering that Keith wanted to be quiet and that would be easier if they were closer. Also, just because he was just always looking for excuses to be close to Keith, but who could blame him.

The two of them stayed crouched there in the darkening sky, just staring at the empty road. Lance was about to ask what they were looking at, but before he was able to get the words out, a spark of movement caught his eye. “Over there,” Keith whispered. “Do you see that?”

Lance squinted. Up Mount Altea, where the walking path disappeared amongst the trees, farther back into the forest, Lance stared at the shifting shadows in between the bushes and tree trunks. It was moving down the trail and toward the road. Instinctively, Lance shrunk behind the boulder more, hiding the top of his head as best he could.

Suddenly, from behind the trees emerged a man. He was quickly followed by another man who was easing his way down the sloped path in a strange manner. Lance quickly realized that the reason for that was that he was attempting to control a stretcher which was occupied by a giant black bag. An involuntary breath of air sucked in through Lance’s lungs and his heart dropped. Eyes wide and intensely focused, Lance studied the stretcher as it was brought down the mountain with another person helping to steady it at the back. Two more people followed down after. Even for as far away as it was, Lance could make out the police uniforms on all of the people there. There was one guy at the back, however, who wore a coat that was more commonly associated with a medical professional.

Lance’s brainstem spiked with that scratching feeling again and he whimpered before he could stop himself. “Are those…?” Lance began to ask. His voice was weak.

Keith skimmed Lance out of the corner of his eye but he chose not to say anything about Lance’s sudden change in demeanor. “Those are the bones,” Keith confirmed. He turned his head to more easily mouth the words into Lance’s ear. “They brought the doctor up there to check it all out and I heard everything. Those bones haven’t been there long. Few years at most. Doctor thinks that whoever those bones were, they were stabbed to death. They’re treating this as a homicide case now.”

“Holy shit,” Lance breathed.

He watched as the group of police officers skittered the stretcher across the road and toward a group of large bushes near the base of the mountain. Lance hadn’t even noticed until then, but there was a police van in the underbrush, almost completely hidden under the leaves and the darkness of the night. A chill ran up Lance’s spine as the stretcher was rolled over to the car and settled into the back.

“Do you realize what this means?” Keith frowned and looked at Lance.

“There’s a killer in Lionsville,” Lance answered him. The serious power in Keith’s violet gaze matched Lance’s perfectly.

The car pulled out from behind the bushes, causing Lance and Keith to startle down and out of view again. It flicked on its low beams and slowly rolled down the road, barely making a single sound. Lance studied it until it blurred into the darkness around it and the light of the headlights was swallowed up by the night. Once it was out of sight, Keith pushed back from the rock and slid down until he was sitting in the dirt, facing the house. Lance stared down at him from where he was still kneeling at the rock.

“Nobody has left this town in decades, and other than you, no one has come to this town in decades either,” Keith muttered as he stared off into space pensively. “There has been no change in the people of this town, so how could this have happened?”

Lance didn’t have an answer. It became too much to watch Keith’s angered expression and he turned his head away in something akin to shame, as if he had caught someone in the middle of something private, not for his eyes. He wanted to reach out and comfort Keith, but he knew that he wasn’t in a position to do that when fear was coursing through his own veins. The chill of the night air suddenly seemed to amplify and pinch at Lance’s bare arms a little bit harder.

“Whoever that son of a bitch is, I’m not going to let him get away with this. I’ll be damned if he walks free.”

“Keith, you can’t just play detective on your own,” Lance warned him.

That response ignited Keith’s frustration and he whipped his head up to glare at Lance ferociously. “Then what am I supposed to do? Just turn a blind eye and pretend nothing happened on that mountain? I live up there, Lance!” he barked.

Lance’s eyebrows furrowed and he firmly replied, “I’m saying to let the police handle it, Keith.”

Keith shifted his upper body and straightened up as if he were challenging Lance. “I can’t just sit around and wait for them to stumble upon a clue. Nothing like this has ever happened in Lionsville and the police have no idea how to treat this!”

“Oh, and you do?” Lance quipped.

“I know that mountain like the back of my hand and I’m not going to sit around with my thumb up my ass while I wait for that bastard to kill again.” Keith slammed his hand into the dirt as he attempted to release the pent-up energy that the conversation was generating within him.

Lance was about to say something back, but he cut himself off when his attention was drawn towards the mountain once more. There, on the path of the mountain, stood a woman. Lance squinted, attempting to focus in on the details, but she was just too far away. She wasn’t moving, just staring out into the road where the police cars had driven away. Lance wasn’t able to make out her face as she had her back to him, but he could feel the melancholy energy dripping from her very presence. Her long, blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, or perhaps it was pigtails. It hung down her shoulders solidly, not being moved at all. She wore torn black pants with a long, tunic-like top with weaving patterns of white, blue, and pink. They both just sat on her body. She was still, eerily still. Not even the wind touched her. Her entire body glitched in and out, as if she were a computer program with so many bugs that it was dysfunctional. Her legs disappeared before coming back. Her arms. Half of her torso was gone for a moment. She wasn’t concerned about that though.

The girl stood there for only a moment before ducking her head and turning around to head back up the mountain. As she turned, Lance, for once, got a clear view of her from the front. Not her face, though. No, it was her body that Lance was more interested in at that moment. The entirety of her visible skin, from her upper thighs to her neck, was covered in blood. It didn’t even look like an injury at that point. There was so much blood that Lance could have easily believed she had fallen into a vat of paint. Except he knew she hadn’t. She disappeared back into the woods of the mountain, fading away as the trees and bushes swallowed her up.

That was the victim. The bones on the mountain that had just been discovered, they belonged to the ghost that had just wandered down the mountain. Lance’s throat dried up and his heart sank as he stared ahead blankly. The thought that someone could do that to such a young girl slowly seeped into his body, weighing him down with the realization that there really was a murderer amongst them.

The ghost, however, was not new. It didn’t surprise Lance to see a ghost at all. Lance couldn’t say when he had started to see them, or if he had always seen them and just not known, but ghosts were a part of Lance’s life as long as he could remember. Ghosts appeared to Lance completely normally, like any other person who was alive and well. The only way that Lance could tell they were dead was from watching them for awhile. Their surroundings didn’t seem to surround them properly. Light didn’t affect them, wind and rain couldn’t reach them, they never got injured. Sometimes they were obviously dead by the fatal wound winding along their neck or cracked into the side of their skull, but other times, their cause of death wasn’t so clear. The biggest giveaway, though, was that no one would interact with them, no one else would see them.

When Lance was little, he didn’t understand that this gift of sight, this ability to see the dead. Lance thought everyone could do that. Long before Lance and his family had begun to move around, when Lance was no more than six years old, a family friend had come to visit. What her name was, Lance wasn’t sure anymore. He could remember when his mother had asked how her husband had been doing. After the car accident that he was in, he had been in the hospital. The lady had happily told Lance’s parents that he was steadily recovering, although there was a hopefulness in her eyes that was tinted with sadness.

Things went wrong, though. It wasn’t unheard of. Lance was just faster than the phone call.

 _“No, he’s right there!”_ Lance had shouted excitedly. He had pointed at the man with the cuts and the bruises littering his face who stood in the corner, smiling. The man had waved at Lance. Lance had waved back. No one else had seen the man in the corner though. Lance had insisted that he was there until their guest was upset and Lance was ushered to his room by Veronica.

When that family friend got the phone call, they were all enjoying a glass of wine. Her husband had died in the hospital. She wasn’t their family friend after that. She never spoke to them again. That was the first of many instances when Lance had a lesson in death. Only he saw it, only he was allowed to know about it. This was Lance’s _gift_ alone, although it often felt like more of a burden.

He called himself a clairvoyant, but only in his head. Other than Lance’s own family, nobody knew, and that was how he wanted to keep it. After seeing that girl on that mountain, smeared up and down with her own blood, Lance had a strange inkling that maybe he wasn’t going to be able to keep things to himself anymore.

Keith hadn’t noticed the girl, obviously. He was too wrapped up in whatever plan was being concocted in his head at that moment, because there was always a plan. Keith was an action man, an act-first-ask-later man. He didn’t plan in the traditional sense. No, Keith planned with emotion and with wild instinct. Whatever Keith was thinking, whatever plan was rolling itself around in that noggin, forming like a snowball, it was explosive and not extremely thought through.

Lance slowly lowered himself down to sit in the ground next to Keith. He couldn’t look at the mountain any longer.

“What if he kills again?” Keith suddenly asked, his eyes meeting Lance’s again. The fire that burned behind his eyes was barely contained. Keith was like a phoenix and one day he was going to burn himself up in his own determination. It was Lance’s fear that he already had. “Have you thought about that, Lance? I can’t just do nothing. He might kill someone else.”

Lance’s heart ached and pumped painfully within his chest. “What if…” Lance swallowed thickly as a thought suddenly occurred to him. It slithered its way into his brain like a virus, chilling him to the bone. “What if he already has…?”

“He probably has,” Keith agreed, but he didn’t seem to catch Lance’s meaning.

“Don’t do anything crazy, Keith. I’m serious this time,” Lance tried. He reached out his hand to grab Keith’s wrist.

Eyes following Lance’s hand, Keith seemed to relax slightly when their skin connected. “I’d be worried if you weren’t serious,” Keith mumbled, still watching their hands. Lance’s heart thudded. “I won’t do anything crazy. I promise.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lance blurted out immediately. Keith’s eyes met his again, almost annoyed, but Lance kept talking. He gripped Keith’s arm harder. “If you’re going to go be crazy on a mountain, I’m going to go be crazy on a mountain with you. Friends don’t let their friends solve murders alone,” Lance chuckled. Sadness rang in his tone.

“No,” Keith asserted. He pushed his chest forward and got farther into Lance’s personal space. “I’m not letting you get yourself wrapped up in this, Lance, that’s insane. You’re not coming. Friends don’t let their friends make stupid decisions that will ultimately get them hurt.”

Lance lifted an eyebrow judgementally. “Right, and me letting you hunt down a killer on your own is, what?”

“A safety measure,” Keith stated.

“Stop playing the hero, Keith!” Lance scoffed. “If I can’t stop you then I’m going to join you. It’s one or the other, take your damn pick.”

Keith scowled. “If you got hurt, I would never fucking forgive myself, do you get that? What if you got killed?” he hissed at Lance. There was too much emotion in his words and it dug into Lance’s skin just like Keith’s nails did. And still, even with the gravity of Keith’s words, his touch was still barely there.

“What if _you_ got killed, Keith?” Lance echoed.

The difference between those two questions, spoken in the cold night air with too much feeling and too much pain by a foolish kid and the boy he loved, was actually astronomical.

Keith threw out a hypothetical. Keith suggested a world where Lance was dead and it was Keith’s fault. Keith was trying to open Lance’s eyes to a possibility.

Lance, however, was asking an entirely different question. _What if it was the same man? The one who killed that girl, what if he was the one who killed you too?_

Keith was dead and he didn’t know it.

He thought he lived on the mountain. He thought that everyone could see him the same as Lance could, but he preferred to avoid them. He didn’t notice when it rained and his hair stayed fluffy, or when he grabbed Lance’s hand and it barely connected, or when no one looked directly at him. Keith was dead and for the past two years that Lance had been living in Lionsville, Lance had never told him.

The moment that Lance had met Keith, it was on that mountain. Keith had seemed so alive, so beautiful, so perfect. It was only a matter of seconds before Lance knew that Keith was going to own his heart for a long, long time. And then he saw it. Hours of them hanging out with Keith showing him the mountain and getting to know him from a cautious distance, and he finally noticed it; Keith had no shadow. They were standing in a clearing with the sun beating down on them, and as Keith chatted about the trees around them, Lance’s eyes wandered down to the grass. Lance’s silhouetted outline stood alone. And Lance never said a thing.

It wasn’t obvious at first. There was no blatant injury on Keith. In fact, for as long as Lance had known Keith, he had never once seen any indication of a fatal wound, nor had Keith mentioned any sort of scar, cut, pain, or incident that could have pointed to a cause of death. Lance had always assumed that he had some illness or had an allergic reaction that killed him and he was just buried in the Lionsville cemetery, even though Lance had never found his headstone the many times that he had hunted for it.

Perhaps this was it after all. The mountain, the killer, everything. That thought chilled Lance just as much as it angered him. He loved Keith. The idea that his bones were in the dirt somewhere on that mountain and neither of them had ever known was heart-wrenching.

Lance wanted justice for Keith if that was the case. He wanted justice for everyone who had been harmed and killed in Lionsville, but for Keith, it was a personal thing, because Lance was in love with a dead boy.


	4. Fibula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know last chapter was heartbreaking, and for that I'm sorry, but this wouldn't be a mystery story without a few more twists. Prepare yourself.

Keith trudged through the woods, his body feeling heavily and drained. He had been holding onto Lance a little bit, not a lot, but enough that it drained some of his energy. He made no noise as he dragged himself through the woods, so it wasn’t like he was going to draw in any attention, but he was still on the edge the entire time. It wasn’t bad enough that there was a confirmed killer in town, there also had to be the problem with Lance. Fuck, everything was stressing him out as of late.

This mountain, it was Keith’s. Not officially and not that anyone really, truly knew, but it belonged to Keith. He lived up there, he protected it, he looked after it. That place meant the world to him. There was no way, _no way,_ that someone could just come out and kill people on that mountain without Keith knowing about it. For a mountain, it wasn’t that big. Keith had explored it in its entirety. Every crack, every crevice, every path, trail, nook, cranny, and cliff. Keith knew it all like the back of his hand. He had been living in Lionsville since he was born and it was absolutely not possible that someone could kill that person on that mountain without Keith noticing or stumbling upon the corpse at some point. How did someone else notice the bones before Keith? And years later, too. _Years._ Keith couldn’t help but feel responsible.

Then there was Lance. That moron was going to get himself killed because he wanted to help Keith on the mountain, as if he didn’t have everything to lose. Lance was foolish like that. He couldn’t seem to comprehend how heartbreaking and devastating it would be to Keith and to everyone in Lionsville if he were to get hurt or die. Lance meant so much to everyone. It was amazing, actually. He had only been there for two years and he had worked his way into the heart of every person in this town, just as if he had been living there his entire life.

Everything about Lance was so bright and fresh and full of life. Keith loved that about him. He loved everything about him. Keith had never been one to bother with love and romance. He had had a few crushes on people here or there, but he had never wanted anything from them. Keith was a reserved kind of person who kept to himself. He didn’t want a summer fling or a longwinded love. Keith was quite content to be by himself, single and happy. Lance changed that though. Lance made Keith’s heart race and his palms sweat. The way he could just get lost in Lance’s eyes and drown in his laugh, it was all so natural and addicting. It wasn’t a quick infatuation, that was for sure.

The moment that he met Lance, he had thought he was dumb. What person went up a mountain they knew nothing about, all alone, on the very first day after moving to a new town which they also knew nothing about? Lance did. Keith had been into town a few times here or there, so he had heard plenty about the new residents that were moving into the farmhouse across from the mountain. It was hard to miss news like that in such a small town, and even harder to miss when they were basically right next door to Keith. If you could even consider that being next door. The point was that Keith had known about their arrival and had kept a very close eye on that house for the week before they finally moved in.

Day one. Keith had seen Lance making his way to the mountain and into the woods against his mother and sister’s wishes and it was only day one. Keith just watched from his clifftop perch that overlooked the entrance and he shook his head in disbelief. What a moron. A really pretty moron. Lance was always beautiful, always had been beautiful. Keith had decided on that day to follow Lance through the forest to make sure the kid didn’t get himself into trouble. He remembered it well, because it was a decision that changed his life, in more ways than one.

Keith glanced back over his shoulder and scanned the woods as he trekked. They were still. Well, the woods were never still. There were always leaves shuffling, small animals darting around, shadows shifting across the ground. Nothing was ever stagnant in the woods and Keith found comfort in the ever-changing, ever-stirring forest that was his home. What Keith was really looking out for though, were ghosts. All around him, the woods felt alive with energy and he was certain that if those bones were upturned, then so too would the ghost of them be. He half-hoped to see the owner, but he also half-hoped that they would keep their distance from Keith until he was ready to talk.

He skirted around a group of trees, clustered closer together than the others, following a small trail that led back behind a cliff. It wasn’t much of a trail. Anyone who followed it would quickly come to a dead end full of bushes and jaded rocks with a fall log covering them. If you were Keith though, then you saw a little more. He slipped his leg through the space underneath the log and forced himself through the little opening. Keith moved swiftly, having become used to passing through the hole in the rubble after all these years. Keith shuffled his way through the bushes on the other side and stepped over a rock.

The thing about that rock was that when you looked at it through the dead-end trail, it appeared like a jaded stone that stuck up from the ground amongst all the other jaded stones on a completely flat and endlessly packed plane of trees and bushes and fallen logs. That was wrong though. You had to know what you were hunting for, but behind that tall stone, there was a steep drop off that went down and behind the cliffside. It was almost like a hidden staircase, except completely natural in the side of the rocks.

Keith meandered down the rock stairs and into a small clearing at the bottom. There was a small trail off to the side of the clearing, almost not noticeable at all. He immediately turned and followed it into the underbrush. All the while, Keith couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. It didn’t help that the sun had been swallowed up, leaving behind only the dark blanket of the night. It never unsettled Keith before, but night was when the deadly often struck, and that was enough to keep Keith on edge.

Squawking filled the night air along with the sudden shaking of tree leaves. Keith whipped his head around to stare into the inky sky where a couple of birds were taking off. He watched them a moment, his heart rate rapidly pumping away within his chest. Grumbling, Keith slowly turned back around and stalked through the woods. All the shadows were so thick and sharp that Keith could have sworn they were drawn on. He could hardly see anything in front of him. Keith trusted his own feet as he made his way down the blackened trail. The mountain top behind Keith loomed over the entire forest and blocked out the illuminating moon, shrouding Keith even farther into obscurity.

Ahead of him, Keith could barely make out the edges of a building on the other side of a small stream. His house. It was a rundown shack in the woods, perched on the side of a small cliff that overlooked the back portion of the mountain and part of the town through the trees, and you had to cross a rickety old bridge that was halfway in the river, but all the same, it was Keith’s home. It had been Keith’s home for a long, long time. Sometimes, Keith wanted to bring Lance out to hang out in it, but he knew that that was a dangerous game. Not only because the path to get there was unsafe and not only because the house itself was unsafe, but just because this was Keith’s sanctuary, and sanctuaries held secrets. Keith, he had a secret that he was keeping from Lance, from everyone.

See, the thing about Lance was that he was special. Lance was special in the sense that Keith wanted to give him the damn world and to pamper him with all the love his cold, repressed heart had to offer, but that wasn’t what Keith meant. Lance and Keith shouldn’t have met. Keith was glad they had, but it shouldn’t have been possible. Keith had been leaning against a tree, observing Lance on his very first trip up the mountain. Imagine Keith’s surprise when Lance’s eyes locked with his and he had greeted him with a friendly and cautious smile. Lance shouldn’t have seen him at all, because Keith was a ghost.

They had spent the day together anyway, talking and chatting and exploring the woods. It was the most genuine conversation that Keith had had with anybody at all in a long time. Keith could feel himself opening up the more that Lance joked around with him and pushed his buttons and bantered with him. It was painful in how desperate he was for a connection like that but it was beautiful in how it made him feel. Keith had wanted Lance’s friendship so longingly that day, and yet it was still a burning question in the back of his mind; did Lance know he was clairvoyant?

And just like that, it was answered. There they were, standing in a field with the sun shining down on them both. Or at least, on Lance. His face glowed, Keith remembered that vividly. Lance’s eyes fell to the grass around them, just casually while he was checking out their beautiful surroundings. And Keith, well, he didn’t have a shadow. Of course, he didn’t. He wasn’t in that realm, Lance was just seeing him on the other side of the veil. Lance said nothing though. Keith pretended he hadn’t noticed it just like Lance did, and nothing was ever addressed about that moment. Keith could see a profound sadness in Lance’s eyes every time something happened that would give away Keith’s ghostly status, like when he touched Lance or when Lance’s friends didn’t notice him or when Keith spoke about himself like he was alive.

Lance was attempting to live life as if Keith were also there, living his life alongside him, as if Keith wasn’t a ghost. It was a weird realization that Lance thought Keith didn’t know he was a ghost. Keith knew. Keith always knew. It was really hard for Keith not to know. Lance was right in one thing though, and that was believing that Keith thought he was alive. Keith did think that, he knew that, because Keith was not dead, he was alive.

Keith was a Veil Walker.

After crossing the rickety, old bridge that was on the verge of falling apart, Keith used as much strength as he could muster through his ghost form and pushed the door open. It drained him of energy almost instantly. He felt heavy and weak, weighed down after exerting himself enough to pass through the veil to the living realm so he could interact with the door. Keith heaved, shrinking in and past the door. There, on the rundown couch in the corner of the dark room, was a body. A dead body.

Well, it was technically dead because there was no soul in it, but it was still functional. Dragging himself across the wooden floor and around the coffee table that was no more than a plank of wood held up by four cinderblocks, Keith stood over the body, studying him carefully. He was curled up and comfortably relaxed, as if he were asleep. Black hair was splayed out around his shoulders and bangs were drooped into his face. There was a red, cropped jacket wrapped neatly around his body. Keith Kogane. It was the body of Keith Kogane.

Keith turned around to face the opposite wall. Then, he pushed his shoulders back and let his entire body drop backwards. As soon as he hit the corpse on the couch, he slipped back into his body. When Keith opened his eyes again, he was on the couch, completely human, completely alive and well. He unwrapped his arms from where they were over his chest and slowly sat up. A yawn escaped him before he could really think about it. Stretching out each leg in the process, Keith stood up again. He stumbled as his knee gave out, but he caught himself quickly on the makeshift coffee table full of clutter. His joints were stiff and locked up after not being moved for so long.

Keith always took a moment to get back into his body whenever he slipped out of it. Everything would come back again, all the things he couldn’t feel as a ghost all returned in his human body. Things like temperature, weight, energy, physical feeling, bodily function. It was jarring, but that was what it meant to be a Veil Walker. That was Keith’s secret. He let Lance believe he was dead, forever and always. He let Lance hint at Keith’s lack of life all he wanted. The real secret though, was that Keith was not dead. He had been that way for as long as he could remember, always able to drop his body like a sack of potatoes and enter the ghost realm. He couldn’t see other ghosts like Lance could, not unless he was acting as a ghost, but it was enough to enter and exit as he pleased. Keith had somewhat of a backdoor into death, a cheat for the afterlife. Once his body died, though, he would remain in his ghost form forever.

After shaking his body out a bit, Keith made his way to the other end of the room. He picked up a block of wood from the stack next to the fireplace and set it into the pit of ash. Using the fire poker, Keith shoved it farther in. Collecting some newspaper off the table and setting it up in the fireplace, Keith produced a lighter from his pocket. He flicked it once, twice, three times until it finally lit. The newspaper quickly became engulfed in flames as he held it in the fireplace.

It would slowly form a large fire that would last Keith the night, but first he retreated to his kitchen to retrieve part of the rabbit that he had caught in the woods the other day. It was cut up and divided into numerous little pieces which Keith had packaged away neatly in two separate Tupperware’s. He tore one of them open and unwrapped three pieces of raw, delectable meat from the tin foil. There were metal skewers in the drawer which Keith used for cooking things over the fire. Carefully, Keith slid a stick into each piece of meat. He turned back to the fire to set everything up for dinner.

Once the fire was roaring and the rabbit meat was skewered and rested on the metal bars over the fire to roast, Keith finally looked after himself. He undressed in his bedroom on the second floor. With a washcloth, Keith rapidly wiped himself down, feeling the cool water damp on the cloth as it painted his skin. Even though it wasn’t his body that had been going around the woods and investigating, it still helped unwind Keith mentally and emotionally to clean himself up.

Keith slapped the wet cloth over the faucet of the sink and wandered out of the bathroom. He picked a cozy, long-sleeved shirt along with some heavy cotton pants. The nights were cold in Keith’s cabin, especially since he didn’t have much in the way of insulation. Meandering his way downstairs, Keith made his way back to the fire. His body was weak and hungry, as if he were sick with the flu. He grabbed a blanket off the couch and billowed it out over the floor in front of the crackling fire. It was warm and welcoming as he settled into a cross-legged sit on the wooden floor.

While Keith sat there, he warmed his body up, letting himself get used to the feeling of heat on his skin and weight in his limbs, all things he lost the sense of when he left his body. He breathed heavily, letting air rush into his lungs and right back out. Sometimes, when he was in ghost form, he would forget to breathe since it wasn’t important. His lungs didn’t need the air. His gasps echoed in the emptiness of the shack, unsettling Keith somewhat, even though he knew they were his own.

It was a strange thing, being able to leave his body. Not for all the obvious reasons, but for all the reasons that no one really thought about. When Keith was a spirit, he was a form of solid energy. He only had the outward appearance of himself at the time he left his body, and even that was something he had to practice at. Ghosts couldn’t just manifest the second they died, they had to practice and work up the energy. And when dead people – or Veil Walkers, in Keith’s instance – manifested properly as ghosts, they weren’t exactly focusing on things that weren’t important to them. Things that they were wearing, that were part of their corpse, that they were attached to; those were the things that ghosts could bring into their spirit forms.

Things like Keith’s knife. He was attached to that thing. So much so, that sometimes, if Keith could create the right kind of energy, he would have his knife. It wasn’t just any knife and it wasn’t just for any reason that Keith had it in ghost form. That knife, with the sigil of his family on it, a family crest of sorts, was given to him by his mother. She wasn’t around anymore. That was all he had left of her. She had taught him all the basics about knives, knife fighting, and knife throwing. That knowledge had been a foundation for Keith, something to build himself up on. So, when Keith lost that knife in the woods, he was devasted. Two years ago, only months after he met Lance, Keith had lost it. His hands still remembered the way he used to twirl it around and flip it through his fingers, but it didn’t matter how many knives he tried to use as replacements, they never fit as perfectly in his hands as that one did.

The idea that if he had that knife, he would be able to protect Lance easier crossed through his mind a couple times. Obviously, he knew that the knife wouldn’t make a difference, not really, but he still missed it. It was a comfort to feel it in his hands. Plus, Keith liked to think that it kept him connected to his mother even after her passing. After two years, Keith just wanted his knife back so he could feel safe and keep Lance safe.

For the rest of the night, Keith sat on the floor, eating his rabbit meat and enjoying the warmth of the fire while he thought up a plan of attack with the killer that Lionsville was suddenly having to face. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t need to sleep. Keith was never truly unconscious. His body got all the energy it needed while he was in his ghost form.

And so, Keith sat there, for hours, and he thought. He thought a lot, but what he thought about most was Lance and how much he wouldn’t be able to handle it if something happened to him. Lance was important to him, and even though Keith had a track record of losing the ones he loved, he wasn’t sure he would be able to take the pain of his history repeating itself. Not again. Not with Lance.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

The clock on the wall ticked. The house shifted and settled loudly. Lance’s spoon clinked against the edges of the bowl which held his cereal. His ears were tuned in to every sound around him, listening and getting lost in the repetition. He carefully watched as the little wheat rings zoomed around in the milk with every stir of his spoon. Lance wasn’t ready for another day of school. A Tuesday, no less. Not even something good, like a Thursday. It was exhausting, all this school. Lance still had that essay he had to write. How could he possibly be expected to write anything after what he had seen last night? It was a mystery that Lance wasn’t sure if he was ready for. So, in the time before he had to leave for school, while his mother and sister were out collecting crops, Lance decided to just relax and not to think about Keith, murder, and Keith investigating murder.

At least, that was what he was trying to do before he was interrupted. Amongst the quiet sounds of the kitchen in the morning, there was a harsh knocking on the door. Lance jumped in his seat, his eyes instantly locking onto the front door. He frowned, waiting for his heart to slow down. All the same, he dropped his spoon into the bowl and stood from his seat to wander over to the door. Without checking who it was, Lance turned the handle and opened the door.

Lance hadn’t been expecting to see anyone in particular, but at the same time, he knew who would be on the other side. In his soul, he had been hoping that he was going to be wrong, but there was no way to skirt around the subject. Halted there at the front door with Sheriff Zarkon and Dr. Holgersson looming on his porch, Lance finally came to accept that this was all a very serious case.

The moment the door was opened, even before either the police officer or the doctor spoke a single word, Lance could sense it. Like a wave being unleashed by the door, Lance was swept up in the amount of energy that was emitted by these two men. Or rather, the energy emitted by what they carried with them. Whatever it was, it was strong and absolutely drenched in feelings of regret, sadness, foolishness, and betrayal. It all grabbed at Lance, much more tangible than the prickling at the back of his neck had been. Like claws in his skin, they latched into his shoulders, his chest, his neck, his arms, his legs, and they pulled on him. It was as if all those negative emotions were attempting to drag him to the floor and dismember him where he lay. The pain was deep.

“Lance McClain,” Zarkon greeted in that same monotone voice he used for everything.

“Can I help you?” Lance hoped he sounded even the least bit casual and normal, instead of what he was really feeling which was the deepest sorrow of the bloody girl whose bones were removed from mountain last night.

The officer shuffled his feet and squinted out into the distant sun. “Is your mother home?” he asked.

Lance shifted his weight onto one leg, not in a causal gesture but in a need to move and to get away from the feelings that were electric in his body. “She’s in the field out back,” he informed them with a flick of his head. “What is this about?” Lance didn’t have to ask, not really.

There was hesitation in Zarkon’s silence. Not visually, because Zarkon was a rock who never revealed any sort of emotion, unless he just didn’t have any emotion to begin with. It was hard to tell. Zarkon just didn’t respond for a moment. He met Lance’s eye, glaring with that cold stare of his, but he didn’t say anything. That was enough for Lance to get the gist that this was a secret investigation. When Zarkon spoke again, Lance was not expecting the words that left his mouth.

“Do you recognize this ring?” he questioned.

Lance raised his eyebrows, surprised and confused. The head doctor of Lionsville, Sven Holgersson, handed an evidence bag forward to Lance. He accepted it from the doctor, but not without great caution. Within the bag, there was a small, golden ring. It was simple without any gems on it, but there was a swirling and winding design engraved along the outside of it. Even though it was marred with dirt, it was still very beautiful. This was what was radiating such strong, horrific energy.

Immediately, the very second that Lance’s eyes connected with the ring in the bag, he inhaled sharply and nearly dropped the bag.

“Yes,” Lance breathed. “I know that ring…”

That ring was an important one. It was the cause of much happiness and excitement for the owner of the ring when she was alive, but now, all Lance could feel was the agony of death and distress. He should have known it before when he had seen her on the mountain in ghost form but she was just too far away to make out. That was no excuse. Lance should have known years ago, when he first arrived in Lionsville.

“Do you know who it belongs to?” Dr. Holgersson asked.

Lance nodded slowly.

Romelle Pollux. She was a manipulative and self-destructive bombshell who would jump at the chance to get out of such a small town the moment it presented itself. When Lance came to town, she was one of the first people that he met. That was probably because she took it upon herself to seek him out. He came from the city and she wanted to go to the city. Lance got the feeling that she was only his friend so that she could hear about life outside of Lionsville, but he indulged her anyway because he could see how desperate she was for change. That was the general feel of the town. They weren’t exactly friends, but they weren’t anything less or more either. It was a left of centre relationship.

It could have been a friendship though, if it had been given time to stitch itself together properly. That wasn’t the case, however, because Romelle managed to get exactly what she had always wanted; freedom. Lance could still remember the very moment that she had come to meet him on the mountain. They had a tree that they would meet under to hang out and drink pop. Lance was hoping to make it a routine, and after a month and a half of knowing her, it had pretty much become just that. It was there, while they were chilling, that Romelle revealed something that would change everything.

She told Lance there that she had found a way out of Lionsville, she had found a way to get away. That wasn’t surprising to Lance. What was, though, was when she told him that she had fallen in love. She never named the guy, but she went on and on about how he was perfect and would take her away from the town to explore the world. He had proposed to her. That was the ring that she had, it was a promise that once they found the perfect place to marry, they would. Apparently, they had been together secretly far before Lance had come to town, and she even asked that he never tell anyone, but it was still insane and unbelievable to think that, at seventeen years old, Romelle was getting married. The way she worded it always made it sound like the guy was from out of town, but that just made Lance more suspicious.

Then she disappeared. Just like she said she would, Romelle disappeared. Lance was the only one who knew, while everyone in town was searching for her everywhere, that she had run away to be with the one she loved. It was wild and crazy and probably would end badly for Romelle, Lance knew that, but there was never any stopping someone whose heart was as free and flighty as Romelle’s was.

He never thought that she would have been killed though. Murdered, right there in the town. Whoever that guy was, the one she loved and the one that Lance knew nothing about, he was the killer. He hadn’t even kept his promise of taking Romelle to a better place. Even in death, Romelle was never able to leave Lionsville. Something about that was almost just as sick as the murder itself.

“Recently, the remains of a young girl were found on Mount Altea. She was identified as being seventeen-year-old Romelle Pollux. This ring was found with her but her family was unable to confirm that this ring belonged to her. Her brother mentioned that you were close with her before her disappearance and suggested that you might recognize the ring. Can you confirm this is Ms. Pollux’s ring?” Officer Zarkon told Lance. He said it all so unfeelingly, as if it made no difference to him that a young girl was dead.

Lance swallowed once. “Yes, that was her ring.” He handed the ring back to Dr. Holgersson like it was toxic to even hold it.

“Would you mind if we came in and asked you a few questions?” Dr. Holgersson asked, offering Lance a reluctant smile.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, Lance sighed. His mother wouldn’t be back in for awhile and it was probably not a problem to let them in the house. He turned back to the two men at his doorstep and motioned them into his house, stepping out of the way as he did. “No, come on in.” He nodded.

Sheriff Zarkon passed Lance, advancing into the house without a second thought. Dr. Holgersson bowed his head a little bit in a thank you as he entered past Lance. They both slipped their shoes off at the front door and left them on the mat. Lance was honestly surprised that the sheriff bothered to take his shoes off at all considering how mission orientated and unwavering he was. Closing the door after them, Lance wandered into the living room to the right and past the stairs. The feeling of these investigators hovering over his shoulder as they followed him was extremely unnerving. Even though they were there to solve a murder, Lance couldn’t help but feel like there was a danger about them. He chalked that up to the ring they held and the negative feelings that dripped from it like molasses.

Lance settled into one of the curved chairs in the corner and motioned with his hand to the other seats. Usually, Lance would have filled the empty silence space with a joke or an idiotic comment, but not even his humour could lift the lead blanket that had fallen over Lance’s home right then. It was thick in the air, like he was trying his best to breathe on a mountain but the elevation was just too high.

“Could you tell us everything you remember about Romelle Pollux?” the sheriff asked. The way he said it led Lance to believe that it wasn’t a request, it was a command. He pulled a pad of paper out of the breast pocket of his uniform along with a pen, which he licked the tip of to get ready himself and write down whatever Lance told him. “Right up until the last time you saw her,” he added.

Lance studied the sheriff for a moment before shifting his focus over to the doctor. He thought back, trying his best to remember a single thing about Romelle. It was awhile ago, and while Lance hadn’t forgotten her completely, it was still hard to remember exactly what she had said and done back then. All those dreams she had, they felt like they were told to Lance in another lifetime. Her contempt for life often worried Lance, but he never thought he’d get to the point where he was sitting in his living room and talking to the police about her murder.

“Lance?” Dr. Holgersson called out.

He had been staring off into space without really noticing. Lance blinked at the doctor before coughing and looking away. “Sorry… I don’t know… I guess, we were friends…?” he tried.

“Be more specific,” Sheriff Zarkon barked.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Lance rolled his shoulders back into the seat and stared up to the ceiling. His brain was a storm of emotion and he could hardly focus on any one feeling, let alone the memories that linked him to Romelle. “Uh…” he muttered. “We went up the mountain a lot. She found this really big tree once so we went there all the time, she liked it there.”

The officer nodded along with Lance’s useless information, jotting things down on his pad of paper. “Do you remember when you first saw the ring on her finger?” he asked.

Lance sighed. He told the story. It was difficult to remember every little detail but he did his best. That story was always a whimsical little tale of a girl he once knew who was out there living her life, possibly with the love of her life. Now, though, it was anything but. It had suddenly been painted with a dark grey brush and ruined in Lance’s eyes. Everything that Lance was once bittersweet about had become nothing but deep regret. It hurt even more to know that that man she had fallen in love with, that guy who promised to take her away to find a better life, he was probably the killer. She had trusted him. It wasn’t even spur of the moment, Lance realized, it had been premediated from the beginning. That was what hurt Lance the most, knowing the lengths this guy went to in order to take her life.

“She didn’t say who the man was?” Dr. Holgersson questioned, staring hard at Lance.

“No, just that he didn’t go to our school,” Lance clarified. He fiddled with his hands in his lap. “I thought she ran away to get married. I… forgot about her…” he muttered. It was painful to admit that, but he had. She just stopped being a part of Lance’s life altogether. He didn’t even notice it happening either. He just adapted. So easily, he adapted.

Dr. Holgersson offered Lance a sympathetic look while Sheriff Zarkon scribbled down some more notes. “The tree you mentioned, it was on the end of a clearing off to the left of the main trail, right?”

Lance glanced at the officer. “Yeah, it was. How… How did you know that?”

Dr. Holgersson and Sheriff Zarkon exchanged a look, an uneasy, uncertain look. Lance didn’t like that. He sat up a little farther in his seat and leaned forward, urging them to continue. “That was where her remains were found,” Dr. Holgersson informed him regretfully.

Closing his eyes, Lance let that sink in. He knew her. Whoever it was that killed Romelle, he knew she liked that spot, but she didn’t like it enough to make it her final resting spot, Lance knew that for certain. Lance swallowed thickly.

“It’s interesting that you haven’t asked how she died yet,” Sheriff Zarkon suddenly stated. Hawk-like eyes were narrowed in on Lance when he faced the man. Lance took a moment to gather himself. He didn’t want to know. That was why he hadn’t asked.

“Yeah, I just figured she… fell off a ledge or something…” Lance lied, his voice trailing off at the end. There was a silence that covered the room again, coated it like that ring was coated. Lance could practically feel the sensation of Romelle’s death in his own body, like he, himself, was dying. “How did she die…?” he finally breathed out.

Sheriff Zarkon didn’t waste a second in answering, “A blow to the head. Caved in half her skull.”

Lance paled instantly and flinched back. His stomach felt sick and he had to breathe carefully through his nose to calm himself down. Something profoundly sad and desperate clawed at Lance’s mind and he was sure it wasn’t completely his own pain. That ring really needed to get out of his house as soon as possible. It was as if Lance was feeding off the agony attached to it, wallowing in his own agony, and encouraging the cycle all over.

The doctor shot him a furious look. If that was because that information wasn’t supposed to be released to the public or because it clearly upset Lance, that was a mystery.

“Well, that’s all we needed to know. Thank you for your cooperation,” Zarkon conceded, returning Holgersson’s look with a sharp glare. Standing from the seat, the officer gave a quick nod to Lance and headed for the door without a second thought. He didn’t even check to see if Holgersson was following behind him.

“Yes, thank you,” Dr. Holgersson agreed. “If you need anyone to talk to, you can come to either of us,” he gave a glance to Zarkon, “or just me… There are many people in town who want to help you too. You don’t have to be alone.” He leaned forward a tad to place a comforting hand on Lance’s shoulder. Lance stared up to meet his kind and reassuring smile, but it didn’t ease his pain. More than anything, Lance needed them to leave.

And that was what they did. Without another word, Dr. Holgersson and Sheriff Zarkon slipped on their shoes and made their way out of the house. Lance watched them leave. He listened to the door click behind them as they left. He felt the way the air cleared and his heart was no longer dragged down like it was tied to an anchor. Everything was normal again. The darkness had left, the pain had left, the interrogators had left, and yet still, Lance felt he couldn’t just let it all go.

He needed to talk to Keith.


	5. Radius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How're y'all doin'?

Staring straight ahead with an intense look of concentration, Lance followed the street to school. As with every other morning that Lance headed to school, the road was empty and the only sign of life around him was the cluster of trees that he passed at the edge of his family’s property before it hit the fence for the neighbour’s property. There was also the mountain, which was covered in all sorts of life such as trees, bushes, deer, rabbits, and whatever else. Except, nowadays, Lance was having a hard time thinking about the living things when his mind was so full of thoughts on the dead things. On this day, Lance made a point to look straight ahead instead of at the mountain.

His backpack shuffled behind him with every step he took, the books inside rustling around. It was a good analogy for his brain, which also felt like a noisy, rustling bookbag of thoughts and ideas that Lance didn’t want to deal with. That feeling of wanting to deal with something but also wanting it to go away completely was a strange one that Lance wasn’t completely accustomed to. It bothered him.

What also bothered him was the fact that he was alone. Not because he didn’t like being alone, which he didn’t, but he always spoke to Keith every morning on his way to school, and yet, the boy hadn’t been at his house that morning. He wasn’t by the front door, or the fence, or somewhere near the mountain’s main road. He’d be meeting up with his friends soon since they always walked to school together, but he was hoping to catch Keith. He had to go on a mission up the mountain later and he needed Keith with him there. Mostly because Keith and him were investigating together so he was the only one he felt he could trust with the information he had, but also just because he wanted to be around Keith.

Right as that crossed his mind, movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned back on instinct. There, wandering up the street after Lance, completely silent in his steps, was Keith. Speak of the devil. He fell into step beside Lance, carefully watching him with those attentive eyes. “Good morning, Keith,” Lance greeted.

Keith grunted out a response, “Hey, yeah, morning.”

“You’re late, today,” Lance observed. “I was looking to talk to you about something important.”

Keith raised an eyebrow at him. “Actually, I’m not the one who’s late. I waited around for you but you had company.” He flicked his head back the way that Lance and, evidently, he had come from. “What did they want?”

Lance’s gaze followed the direction that Keith had been indicating before turning to the road again. “Oh, yeah. Zarkon and Holgersson,” he sighed. “That was what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.”

“It’s about the bones,” Keith asked, except it was really more of a statement than anything. That was something that Keith had a talent for; asking things that were easily not questions at all.

“Well, sort of,” Lance agreed. “They have an ID for the body now.”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened. “Already? Really?”

“This is a small town, Keith, if it’s not Bob, then it’s gotta be Sally,” Lance reminded him.

With a shrug of his shoulders, Keith conceded, “Fair enough. So, who was it?”

Lance glanced to the side, watching Keith’s reaction. “Romelle Pollux.”

Keith whipped his head toward Lance, his eyebrows pulled in together. “Romelle?” he repeated.

Lance nodded in affirmation.

Several emotions passed over Keith’s face at once then, like he couldn’t decide what to feel while he attempted to scrounge up some words of some kind. “She was that girl you always hung out with on the mountain. She ran away, didn’t she? That’s what everyone said happened to her, that’s what you said happened to her. How did she end up in the dirt, that doesn’t… make any sense…?” he vented, angrily searching Lance’s face for some sort of hint that would give him answers. Unfortunately, though, no one seemed to have those answers, and certainly not Lance. He was kicking himself and asking that same question too.

Staring at the ground, Lance sighed, “That’s what everyone’s trying to figure out.”

“Wait,” Keith breathed.

Lance glanced over to the ghost boy walking next to him. “What?” he asked.

An intense expression clouded Keith’s face, and while that wasn’t uncommon or out of place at all, it still struck Lance’s heart every time he saw it. “The police, they weren’t at your house because they think you had something to do with this, were they?” The anger arose from his tone once more.

“No!” Lance quickly assured, his eyes widening and his hands flying out to placate Keith’s ferocity. “No, that wasn’t why they were there.”

“Then, why?” Keith questioned, some of his anger seeping off him, although not all of it.

Lance was about to answer Keith’s question, his mouth was open on words that never left his tongue, when he heard someone from down the road yell, “Lance! There you are! We were about to send out a search party for you!”

It was Pidge, complaining about Lance’s attentiveness with time. She was stood there with her hip cocked out to the side and one arm propped up on it. Her bag was hanging halfway off her shoulder, nearly dragging in the dirt with how much she didn’t care about it. There was a wild tangle in her hair, more so than usual. The heat of the day was getting to her since she wasn’t used to it. She was a bit of a basement dweller in her heart, never putting too much stock in nature when she had an entire setup of computers in her house. Nothing could top the world of electronics in her opinion, and that was the Holt way.

At her side, Hunk was squinting down the road in an effort to make out Lance through the morning sun. He at least had a bandana to keep his hair out of his face, but that didn’t erase the heat. As he waited for Lance, he grabbed the front of his shirt and shook it out, creating some semblance of a breeze across his skin. Hunk had never been one to enjoy the extreme heat. He had lived in town all his life, and although it was more or less a desert of a town, there weren’t a lot of overly hot days. That wasn’t to say Hunk didn’t like the heat at all though.

Lance didn’t even notice the heat, but that was because he had been born in Cuba where it was almost always hot. When it got hot there, it was hot, there was no question about it. Being that close to the equator made it harder to get used to how much colder this town was in comparison, but he didn’t have much of a problem with that. Even after two years of letting himself get accustomed to the colder temperature, the hot day still didn’t get to him.

“That’s the second time you’ve been late this week, Lance, are you alright?” Hunk called, a skeptical eyebrow already working its way onto his face before Lance could even answer.

“See, told you it wasn’t me who was late,” Keith offhandedly commented, a teasing lilt in his voice.

Although he wanted to, Lance wasn’t able to turn his head and give Keith an equally teasing look back. There was nothing he would have been able to say or do that wouldn’t draw attention to itself. Lance often wondered what Keith thought of the fact that Lance froze up when he was around his friends and Keith at the same time.

Instead of reacting to Keith, Lance focused on his friends. “Hey, sorry! I got lost again,” he laughed.

Pidge and Hunk shared a confused look as they stood down the road, waiting for Lance to catch up to them. “You got lost?” Hunk echoed.

“In your own house…?” Pidge added. One of her eyes twitched up.

“Yep! There are just so many confusing lefts and rights in that place, y’know?” He waved his hands around as if that would explain it. They both looked like they were about to question him, but instead, he spoke again, cutting any words they could have said right off. The last thing he needed was a bunch of questions about where he was and why he was late. “Let’s not be any later then, shall we?” He guided them along, not stopping in his tracks even as he closed the distance between him and his friends. They didn’t seem to be bothered though, following Lance’s lead. “Can you believe it’s almost the end of the year? Summer is right around the corner!”

Pidge released an irritated noise, “Yeah, I know, I can feel it.” She stared up into the sky, her hair getting in her face again.

As she and Hunk rambled about the heat, Lance quickly glanced over his shoulder. Keith was stood there in the middle of the road with his arms folded over his chest and his gaze locked on Lance. Out of view of his friends, Lance pointed frantically at the mountain while mouthing at him, “Meet me.” Keith’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion before his entire expression suddenly cleared and he dipped his head in understanding.

When Lance turned back to face the road and pay attention to his friends again, he couldn’t help but feel a horrible guilt at the fact that it probably looked like he was ignoring Keith or avoiding him around Pidge and Hunk, but that was not the truth at all. In fact, Lance often found himself dying to gush about Keith, about how beautiful he was, how sweet, generous, protective, badass, and intelligent he was. It was agony keeping it to himself all the time when he wanted to scream it from the rooftops.

He told Romelle about a boy he liked once, but he didn’t name any names. My, how time had changed things. The thought occurred to him that he could finally introduce Romelle to that boy he always talked about. It was a shame it had to be because they were both dead.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

The moment that school ended, Lance was practically vibrating with anticipation. He had tried his best to be calm and not give away how antsy he was on the walk back from school, and he thought he had done a pretty good job. Pidge and Hunk hadn’t said anything or given him anymore weird looks. At least, he hadn’t noticed any. It was difficult to notice those types of things when his brain was busy focusing on other, more important things. Although his mind had been decidedly elsewhere since the beginning of the week – which was also the beginning of the entire bone situation – Lance was still able to put on a face for his friends so that they didn’t know something was up. He felt bad for that, but at least they weren’t getting tangled up in something dangerous at the hands of Lance. So, as they walked home, Lance laughed along with Pidge and Hunk’s jokes, even making a few of his own just so that no one thought he wasn’t engaged. It was nice.

Once they passed Pidge’s house, quickly followed by Hunk’s house, Lance said his calm goodbyes with a wave and a smile, telling them both that he would see them the following day. He wandered along the trail again, his feet moving at a leisurely pace. His ears were perked up though, carefully listening to the movements that both friends made at their doors. When he heard the telltale slam of each door, indicating that both Hunk and Pidge had disappeared inside their respective homes. Perfect.

Lance instantly gripped the straps of his blue backpack and booked it down the road. Long legs flying at impossible speeds, Lance practically flew his way home. His bag clunked and jingled and rustled loudly as he hurried along and Lance had never been more grateful that he lived out of town. No one needed to see the lanky, sporadic form of Lance frantically scrambling down the dirt trail, limbs flinging out every which way and backpack nearly launching books and papers all over. He panted and wheezed as he sped along, his heartrate through the roof. Lance wasn’t out of shape at all, but he also wasn’t used to such heavy track and field. Of course, he could have slowed down, but this was an urgent matter and he couldn’t afford to do that.

The house came into sight in the distance on the other side of the cluster of trees near the property line, and Lance couldn’t have been more relieved if he tried. The mountain was looming at his left, beckoning him and calling out to him. It was all fine though, because before long, Lance would be heading right up there to investigate with the help of Keith.

As soon as Lance got to the corner where the road to his house began, he flung himself around it, nearly clipping his hip on the fence post as he rounded it. Luckily, he swerved his body around it before colliding, effectively casting his body farther down the road as he raced along. The dirt kicked up beneath his feet as his shoes smacked the ground, leaving a literal cloud in his wake. Lance rapidly approached the house, skidding to a stop right at the front step. He didn’t stop soon enough and instead tripped over the first step of the porch. Tumbling forward, Lance caught himself on the rest of the stairs and managed to half-crawl, half-push himself up toward the door. Standing up again, he glanced back, startled. With a shrug, Lance huffed out a breath and hurried toward the front entrance.

Lance didn’t have time to fuck around at the house doing things that he knew he really should have been doing like greeting his family, helping with dinner, or writing that stupid essay Iverson was harassing him about. Something. Instead, Lance slithered his arm out toward the door, opened it slowly and carefully so that no one would hear him, and pulled it minutely open. A loud squeaking was emitted. Lance hissed at the door, willing it to be silent. He pulled it open some more. It shrieked at him.

“Shh, be quiet!” Lance hushed desperately. He breathed in deeply, then released it slowly, still holding the door minutely open. “Okay…” he said to himself, “like a Bandaid, we can do this.” It wasn’t quite clear who ‘we’ was, but it also didn’t matter. With one fluid motion, Lance ripped the door all the way outwards. It creaked once on the way. Everything was silent then, no sound coming from the door or from within the house, much to Lance’s respite. He thanked the Gods of Sneaking Around for being so merciful on this day.

Lance held the door with his left leg, making sure it didn’t close on him and make more noise. Then, slowly, he slipped his backpack straps off his shoulders and over his arms. The bag shifted around. It wasn’t too loud, but Lance was in ninja mode so he couldn’t afford to make a single sound to begin with. He swung the backpack around and into the house, letting it land on the linoleum next to the umbrella stand that was by the welcome mat. It crunched so loud that Lance was sure he was about to be busted. His heartrate spiked and he cringed as he frantically attempted to shush the backpack. Eyes scanning the kitchen and the living room, he hunted for his mother and sister, hoping upon hope that they didn’t hear any of that.

Even if they had heard Lance and were coming to the front of the house right then to investigate the noises, it didn’t matter. Lance didn’t wait another second, he just bolted away from the door. It would close slowly on its own and click shut, that wasn’t the issue. He just didn’t want to deal with the loud door noises again. Sprinting down the trail again, Lance headed directly for the mountain. If either of his family members noticed that he had been at home to drop off his bag, then they didn’t do anything to stop him from running away. Or maybe they yelled at him and he just couldn’t hear them over the beating of his own heart and the puffing of his own breath.

Hurrying along, past the fence posts and across the street to the mountain, Lance felt it as he was swallowed by the shadow of the regal mound of dirt ahead of him. As Lance approached the base of the mountain, he slowed his pace down to the point where he was more or less just walking towards it. He instinctively combed the trees and the trail near the entrance to Mount Altea, his eyes hoping to lock onto the inklings of black hair or red jacket through the leaves. He saw nothing. With a grunt, Lance picked up his feet a little bit more, jogging the rest of the way to the mountain.

The gravelly trail leading up the mountain crunched under Lance’s shoes as he trekked his way up the slope. It was a pretty steep slope too. The mountain honestly was just a mound of dirt in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t even an obvious place for the path to go so the excavators had to make a jagged, little footpath that was so steep and so half-assed that it was a wonder anyone could get up the thing at all. It was almost like a deer trail rather than an actual, manmade trial. Still, Lance made his way up it as fast as he could, trying to track down Keith as he went.

At the top, Lance stared off into the many darkened areas of the forest ahead of him. Rays of light managed to breech the heavy layer of foliage that made Mount Altea feel like it was shrouded in perpetual darkness and it appeared like a mystical, never-ending wonderland of nature. Lance sighed. It was so hard to feel that whimsy anymore when it was tainted by drudged up bones and regret. He forced the thought out of his head and scanned the forest again as he wandered farther into it.

“If I were a Keith, where would I be…?” Lance muttered under his breath.

“You’d be waiting for a Lance to finally tell you what the fuck is going on,” a voice responded.

Lance leaped, nearly tripping over a nearby tree root. He whipped around, eyes wide and hands outstretched to fight. Luckily, there was no threat there. It was Keith. He stood there, arms crossed and eyebrow raised. Lance heaved and pressed a hand into his heart, willing it to slow down. “Fuck, Keith, don’t just come out of nowhere like that!”

Keith stepped closer, one hand dropping to his side while the other one planted itself on his waist. “You told me to meet you here,” he reminded, as if that made up for his sneaking up on Lance.

“Yeah, but I didn’t ask you to startle the shit out of me, did I?” Lance sarcastically asked. He straightened himself up, removing his hand from his heart to gesture along with his words.

“Alright, sorry,” Keith conceded. “Now are you going to tell me what’s going on with the police and with Romelle?” He tilted his head to the side as he often did when he was trying to figure something out but it wasn’t quite clicking in his head.

Lance forced himself not to be distracted by how cute it was, although it was a struggle. He subtly cleared his throat and glanced away from Keith’s adorably furrowed eyebrows and his delicately downturned lips. It was always a mystery in itself to Lance how Keith could look as hard and aggressive as he did while still somehow managing to look like a refined model. He was gentle and sharp at the same time and Lance just couldn’t fathom it how Keith could have been a living person at one point.

“Yes, Keith, I am. Walk with me, we’re on a mission,” Lance instructed, spinning around and marching into the woods again. Although there were no leaves crunching or twigs snapping behind him, Lance knew that Keith was following along, phasing through everything on the forest floor which Lance’s feet disturbed. He hated to admit it, but the woods were much more soothing when Keith was there with him, even though he was a ghost. That might have been his crush talking.

“Police visits, Romelle Pollux, secret missions,” Keith listed. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, McClain, because none of these pieces are connecting up yet.”

“Okay, okay,” Lance began, flattening his hands into the air to gather himself as he told the story. “So, this morning, the police were not at my place to accuse me of anything. At least, I don’t think that’s what they were doing…” Lance furrowed his eyebrows, thinking back on his conversation with the sheriff and the doctor. “If they suspect me, they didn’t say it,” Lance concluded.

Keith raised an eyebrow. “If they suspected you, why would they say it?”

“I don’t know, Keith, let me explain.”

As Keith stepped away from Lance to round a tree before joining right back up with him on the mission, he nodded. “Alright, continue.”

“Thank you,” Lance smiled. “They were there because they found a ring on her finger that her family couldn’t identify and they came to ask me since I was friends with her. The thing is, it was her ring, but it was given to her by some guy she told me about.”

“What guy?” Keith questioned.

Lance pointed a finger into the air like Keith had just asked the million-dollar question. “See, that’s just it. I don’t know. She never mentioned anything about him except that he didn’t go to the school. She was talking about this guy, saying she was going to run away with him and marry him. And this was right before she went missing. I think he – whoever he was – killed Romelle.” He swerved around a tree and over a small dip in the earth.

“Everyone said she ran away,” Keith mused, studying the ground as he walked.

Lance glanced over at him as he was lost in thought. “Yeah… I thought she did too…” he agreed.

“If we’d known, maybe we would have been able to find her sooner,” Keith speculated, glancing up at the trees around them with a sadness in those violet eyes of his. There was guilt shining there, as if it were his fault Romelle’s body sat there for two years.

“She still would have died,” Lance commented. He wasn’t sure why he said it. It didn’t erase any of the pain they were both feeling.

Keith didn’t flinch though. If he took the comment personally then he didn’t show it. Almost as if Lance had said something completely casual, Keith steered the conversation once more, his tone lightening and his eyes clearing when he blinked. “So, I think I’m still missing something. If you think this guy she never spoke about killed her, then what does that have to do with whatever mission requires us being in the woods?” Keith gestured out towards the direction that they were heading.

Lance cleared his throat and followed Keith’s gaze to the trees. “I am glad you asked, Keithy!” he announced as cheerfully as possible, shedding off the sadness that he decided he didn’t have time to feel at that moment. “We’re going to that clearing because there has got to be something the police missed.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Call it a gut feeling,” Lance mysteriously answered, pressing a finger into his lips secretively. Keith squinted at him in confusion.

Of course, Lance’s abilities to see ghosts and feel auras weren’t the only abilities that he had. The truth was, although he titled himself as a clairvoyant, Lance was more than that. He also carried a much more serious and sinister ability. It was the one that he really didn’t like, the one that he really did resented.

People die. When people die, they don’t always have control over where it happens or how it happens. That means that death can and does happen anywhere and everywhere. Lance could feel it. He could feel the wisps of death swiping over his mind and body as he passed over a place where someone had died. That was fine. If that were it, Lance could have just ignored it. That wasn’t it though. If Lance stood in one of those places, and he closed his eyes, and he allowed the energy to enter his mind, he would experience it as his own pain. Every part of that person’s death, he would feel it, see it, hear it, smell it, taste it. That was what made it dangerous. Some people died in very traumatic ways that would scar Lance if he wasn’t careful. Some people died in ways that were so intense that if Lance wasn’t careful, he could die just by standing in their place of death.

Seeing ghosts and seeing auras; those were things that Lance couldn’t change, he just did them. Experiencing others’ deaths was something Lance had control over. It hadn’t always been that way though. When Lance was younger, he didn’t have as much control over his abilities like he did now that he was older. It would happen anytime he wandered into a death site and stood there for long enough.

He could remember when he was around ten years old, perhaps eleven, and he was taken on a field trip to a war museum. It happened to have been built right next to one of the original battle grounds. That was one of their main advertising factors, the thing that drew a lot of people in. When they got a tour of the grounds, Lance had felt it. It was like a flash flood of feeling in his mind. One minute he was on a beautifully manicured historical site with his classmates, the next he was in a trench.

Everything was loud in his ears, louder than anything he had ever experienced. He was heaving and his body felt heavy. There was a gun in his hands and blood on the uniform that he didn’t remember putting on. All around him, people were screaming and shouting. Guns were going off, blowing out his eardrums. Cannons were being launched. Horses were whining so loud and so strained that Lance couldn’t even bring himself to imagine what was happening to them. Everything smelled like smoke, and tasted like blood, and looked like ash. People he didn’t know, had never known, were lying motionless in the grass next to him, laying in a pool of their own blood. Others were running by, completely disregarding Lance. And Lance, he couldn’t move. His limbs weighed a million pounds and he was so numb. It was horrific.

It felt so real. It _was_ real. Lance knew that now. All that he saw in that moment had been real and had actually happened right there on that spot he had stood. At the time, Lance hadn’t known what it was. It felt real, though at the same time, it was like Lance knew it was a dream of some sort. He knew it wasn’t really happening to him in that moment, he just couldn’t make it stop, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t get away. So, he screamed and shrieked and struggled to hear his own voice through the dream-like state but all he could hear was the ringing in his ears.

Someone had grabbed his shoulder. It wasn’t in the dream though, it was in reality. They had pulled him away from the spot that he had been standing and it was like a flip was switched off. Everything ended. He was back in the silent, empty, perfectly mowed lawn that the museum had open for tours. Lance had been shaking and he had fallen to his knees, thrown up, and passed out.

That kind of thing didn’t happen anymore since he learned to control when he saw peoples’ deaths. As painful as the idea was, Lance wondered if he would be able to find where Romelle had been killed so he could accept her death into him. By experiencing it for himself, he figured that he might have been able to get a glimpse of the guy who had done that to her, who had hit her over the head after gaining all her trust and love. As painful as that would be, both physically and mentally, Lance knew he had to try it, for Romelle’s sake. He didn’t tell Keith that though, because that was an entire thing that led to talk of ghosts, and Lance wasn’t sure if he was ready to tread that closely to the truth with Keith yet. Not on the matter of death, anyway.

“So, if we’re going to hunt a killer, we’re going to need suspects,” Keith stated. He seemed to be thinking out loud, one of his fingers scratching incessantly at his chin.

Lance let his attention be drawn back in by Keith. “Right now, everyone in this town is a suspect.”

“No, that’s not right,” Keith bluntly corrected. He listed his fingers out on his chin, tapping them against his skin as he spoke. “We know it’s a guy, so that rules out all the women and girls in the town. You said he wasn’t in school, so any guy who’s been out of school for at least two years. That narrows the list, but not by much. We’re looking for men at least nineteen years old.”

Nodding along with Keith’s analysis, Lance furrowed his eyebrows and allowed himself to think about the information they had before them for a moment. “Okay, that’s fair enough. Can we narrow it down even more?”

“Well, what do you know about Romelle, because that could limit who she would agree to marry.” Keith let his hand drop back down to his side and into his pocket.

“Yeah, you see, that’s the part that’s really getting me. That part alone is crazy and unbelievable. She’d have to be really into a guy to marry him because Romelle was a heartbreaker,” Lance exclaimed, his face scrunching up in confusion. “She was a free spirit, you know? The last thing that she wanted was to be tied down to one place. And, I mean, he did agree to take her out of the town, so he’d have to have money, right?”

Keith glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “No, not necessarily… He could have easily lied about having any money to take her anywhere. He clearly didn’t have any intention of taking her somewhere. All that proves is that he has to be charming and attractive,” Keith reasoned.

“Wait.” Lance paused walking.

Keith took a few more steps forward before halting and turning back to study Lance curiously. “What…?”

“What if all of it was true, but she died by accident?” Lance suggested.

Keith stared at Lance over his shoulder for a moment longer before turning to stare out into the woods with an almost disgruntled expression. He glanced to the ground, then back up at Lance, this time stepping around to fully face him. “By… accident…?” he echoed, as if Lance’s words were completely ridiculous. “Teen girls don’t just accidentally have their heads caved in, Lance.”

“No, I know that!” Lance waved his hands around to quiet Keith’s doubt. “What if they were really going to run away together but they had a fight and he hit her over the head impulsively, not meaning to kill her, but accidentally doing just that?” He put his hands out as if he were presenting this idea physically to Keith.

There was a look of thought on Keith’s face for a moment, like he wasn’t sure whether to accept that idea as a good one or a terrible one. “I… guess that could have happened…” he muttered. “That doesn’t do anything to narrow down who it could be though.”

“Well, what do we have?” Lance asked. He wandered up to continue walking next to Keith.

“Male, nineteen plus, charming, attractive,” Keith listed off again, bobbing his head along with every bullet point.

Lance listened, slowly bowing his head as he did. When Keith was done, he sighed, “Great.”

“That’s not a lot to go off of,” Keith commented.

“But it’s better than nothing.” Lance smiled over at Keith as cheerfully as he could muster in the situation.

Right then, Lance and Keith emerged into a clearing. All the trees were stripped of the area, but not for any manmade reason. It was somewhat of a strange thing, like a mini field surrounded by many trees, perfectly manicured in the shape of a circle. If Lance hadn’t been a clairvoyant the way that he was, he would have thought that the eeriest thing about the mountain was that clearing alone. It was as if the second you stepped foot past through the trees and into the grassy circle, reality itself was altered. All sound outside of the circle was muted. The air was heavy, yet fresh. Something about the way the wind flowed across the grass and through the bordering trees made it sound like there could possibly be music in the distance; a familiar tune, but quite place it because you couldn’t quite hear it. The tones of the clearly were different too, and they reflected that with the way the sky seemed lighter, brighter, not even close to the sky that Lance saw from town. Lance sometimes wondered if the trees were afraid to grow in the centre or if they were protecting it.

As Lance and Keith wandered through the clearing, Lance could feel all his worries melting off of him. If Romelle was going to be murdered anywhere, Lance would hope it would be in that circle of open grass. There was no way that Romelle could ever rest in peace without her murderer being caught and her body being properly buried, but Lance imagined that the closest she could get to peace without those things would be burial in that clearing. It was a truly peaceful place on that mountain.

Lance strode across the glade with Keith at his side, heading directly for the big tree near the other end. His feet shuffled against the grass. Just his, Keith’s seemed to phase right through the blades as if they weren’t even there at all, as usual. It always reminded Lance that Keith was dead whenever they weren’t speaking because then he could hear all the sounds that he was making combined with the eerie silence of Keith’s own movements. Romelle was like that now too. Instinctively, Lance scanned the line of trees around them, hunting for some sort of glimmering figure that would indicate Romelle was nearby, but there was nothing there.

The two boys slowed down as they approached the large tree near the far border. It was a majestic tree, the perfectly smooth and strong type of deciduous tree that enticed a person to sit down and lean against it while taking a nap. Lance stared at it. Just like it had leaped out of his memory, straight out of the past, Lance could see himself relaxed there with Romelle, talking about everything under the sun and then some. Those days had been gone for a long time, but they’d never been gone in quite the same way as they were now. Especially when there was a human-sized hole in the dirt next to the roots from where they had dug up her body.

“Hey, Lance?”

Lance turned to Keith then, dazed and lost in thought as he did. “Huh?”

“Are you okay…?” Keith asked, concern shimmering in his eyes as he watched Lance motionlessly hover in front of the tree.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. It’s just different now,” Lance admitted. He forced a smile which wasn’t returned by Keith. The worried expression remained on his face, tainting those beautiful features that Lance was so in love with.

Keith’s eyes averted toward the trunk of the tree and he shuffled his feet noiselessly. “We don’t have to do this. We can go back.” His suggestion hung in the air for a moment.

“No,” Lance finally answered. He gathered his courage an rolled his shoulders as he psyched himself up. “We’re doing this to catch a murderer and if we back out now then we’ll never learn anything. This guy has been living right under our noses and until we find out who he is, we can’t be sure that anyone is safe.” The seriousness in his voice seemed to surprise Keith, but that was completely understandable because even Lance, himself, was surprised.

Before either of them could speak, someone else beat them to it. “Who are you talking to?” the male voice startled Lance back. Both Lance and Keith spun around to stare, wide-eyed at the newcomer. The guy stood there, staring directly at Lance with a coldness in his eyes that made Lance shiver. “What are you doing out here?” he hissed, glaring.

And at that moment, Lance realized just how secluded that clearing in the woods really was. No wonder Romelle was killed there.


	6. Sphenoid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everybody!  
> How're y'all doing today? I'm doing pretty alright, I recently got my eyebrow pierced and it's healing and such, so that's good. That's my update. Well, I guess this entire page is my update, pfft.  
> If you - _yes, you!_ \- have a theory or idea or you just want to collect your thoughts in the comments, dawg, go for it! I love hearing your thoughts!

Lance stared at the man across from him in the empty field. He was completely alone there, well, aside from Keith. Not for nothing, but Keith couldn’t really do anything if he was dead and just a ghost. What little wind that was there moments ago suddenly died down, highlighting the silence between Lance, Keith, and the stranger who had approached them.

Then it dawned on Lance. He wasn’t a stranger. Of course, he wasn’t. In that town, how could he have been a stranger? Adam Wells. He worked at the post office. Lance wasn’t a huge fan of his. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, at least not that Lance could tell, he just got a strange vibe whenever Adam was around. Adam was dating Shiro though, and Shiro was a good friend of Lance’s as well as all of Lance’s friends, which meant that he had to deal with Adam. Not that talking to Adam was dealing with him, Lance just couldn’t click with him. It was as if there was some sort of blockade around Adam that no one could seem to break, not even Shiro. For as close as they were, Adam still always held something back and it made him feel… less human…

Still, Lance couldn’t relax even knowing that it was Adam. In fact, of all the people in the entire town that it could have been, Lance could think of only a couple who would be worse than Adam, especially when they were cornering you at a crime scene. Lance back up minutely, his feet carrying him without his brain really connecting up to the motions.

“Adam, hey,” Lance greeted with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes in the least. It wasn’t that Lance necessarily thought Adam was going to do anything, but with the circumstances of their meeting in the woods, Lance wasn’t exactly comfortable. “Funny seeing you out here,” Lance laughed.

And the more that Lance thought about it, the more he realized that it really was funny to see Adam out there. Why was he there? It wasn’t that he wasn’t supposed to be there, or that it wasn’t allowed. The mountain wasn’t off limits anymore, the police had opened it back up to the public. That was a little bit strange to Lance that they would open it back up so soon, but he also supposed that the police had never had to deal with something of that sort in such a small town and it was a new process to them. Still, for Adam to be up there so early after a crime was odd. Lance had been up and down that mountain constantly, and he’d been to that clearing all the time with Romelle, and never once had he seen Adam anywhere near that thing.

“I’ll ask again,” Adam stated, ignoring Lance completely. “What are you doing?” His hands were on his hips, creating an authoritative air around him as he stared Lance down like he was scolding his son for thinking the family firearms were toys.

“I’m just hanging out…” Lance muttered. “I live across the street, I’m allowed to be up here.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he had added that part but it felt like some sort of shield right then, like he was defending himself for being there and simultaneously asking Adam what he was doing there. Adam didn’t have an excuse, he lived on the other end of the town. His challenge was wary though, non-threatening even to Lance’s own ears.

Adam didn’t look impressed. “Hanging out at a crime scene?”

“How does he know about the crime scene?” Keith hissed over his shoulder at Lance without looking away from Adam. That thought alone was enough to make Lance even more nervous than he was already. It was a good question. Lance knew because Keith told him, and Keith knew because he was always on the mountain, but what did Adam have?

Lance shrunk away, his entire body twitching back in on itself and toward the tree again. Adam didn’t move forward, although, at his side, Keith was moving closer to Lance with a set to his eyebrows that told Lance he was prepared to fight if Adam did decide to do anything. Perhaps Lance was being too paranoid that Adam was up to something just because he was on the mountain, but at that moment, surrounded by the calming, yet unsettling silence of the clearing, anything seemed possible.

“Yeah, well, what are you doing up here?” Lance huffed. He stepped back some more. Keith was carefully inching in between Adam and Lance as though he would be able to stop any sort of altercation from happening between the two of them. It still comforted Lance to know that Keith was there, even if there was nothing he could actually do.

“My father is on the task force. I’m checking out the scene with a fresh pair of eyes. He asked me to,” Adam explained. Lance honestly couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not. He’d never met Adam’s dad, or heard about him for that matter. He could have been a police officer, but who was to say? “And you’re hanging out here, why?”

Adam took a step forward then, setting Keith off like a guard dog. He bristled, his shoulders setting and his knees bending as if he was about to start charging at Adam. Lance was right behind him, watching it all happen. He was attempting to do it subtly since it wasn’t exactly appropriate to be checking Keith out when Lance himself was in danger, but also because Adam could clearly see one of the boys and not the other. Still, Keith seemed to be instinctively reaching back with his hand like he wanted to push Lance back by the hip.

Lance didn’t answer his question, too busy watching between Keith and Adam as the air thickened and tension grew.

Adam spoke again, as though he could tell Lance wasn’t going to answer. “It’s terrible what happened to Romelle. You were close with her, weren’t you?” he asked rhetorically. “My father said you gave them some good information, a lead even.” There was no question there, no accusation or jumping off point into the next line of conversation. Lance couldn’t discern where Adam was going with this at all and it unnerved him. It could have been a statement of thanks for Lance’s help just as easily as it could have been an allegation that Lance knew too much about the circumstances.

“Lance, we should go,” Keith growled, still with that stiffness in his muscles like a wolf that was ready to attack. Lance couldn’t agree more.

Once again, Lance backed up, stepping farther away from Adam. Although, because Lance wasn’t looking where he was going, he managed to stumble over the edge of the hole that had once held Romelle’s body. One of his feet caught on the edge, tumbling him directly into the hole itself. He landed on his ass, catching himself with his hands on the edges of the holes.

“Lance!” Keith startled toward the boy in the hole, momentarily forgetting about Adam. He dropped to his knees next to the hole.

Luckily, the hole wasn’t that deep and Lance hadn’t fallen far enough to actually hurt himself. He could look straight ahead and his eyes would be right in line with ground level. Lance blinked once, taken aback by the sudden fall. He glanced up at Keith where his friend was worriedly watching him from the top of the hole. His eyes trailed over to Adam, who was hurrying over to Lance with his eyes wide.

“Lance, are you alright?” Adam asked. He reached a hand down toward Lance in order to pull him up. Keith, on the other side of the hole, glared at Adam and released a protective noise that was somewhere between a yell and a growl. The sentiment of not wanting to be too close to Adam that Keith clearly had, was shared by Lance. He scooted back within the dirt hole until he hit the wall, subtly avoiding Adam at all costs.

He coughed, “I’m fine, I’m okay. That hole just… came out of nowhere.” He laughed nervously. Part of that was to convince Adam he didn’t need help but the other half was to assure Keith, who he made sure to glance to while he spoke.

“You should be careful,” Adam insisted. He shook his hand out at Lance some more and shuffled closer to the hole. That guy could not take a hint at all, he just kept trying. Keith looked like he was about to leap across the hole at Adam for even attempting to get close to Lance. It was a new thing. Lance had never seen Keith get like that before, but then again, Lance had never been suspiciously cornered in the woods by a murder cite before.

Lance crawled back a little bit more, his body scrunching itself up against the dirt siding. “You’re right, I should be more careful. I really shouldn’t be out here at all. No one should. Maybe we should all just dust off our pants and head home,” Lance smiled, his lip quivering at the side. He hoped that Adam couldn’t tell that he was shaking where he sat. Keith could tell though.

Then his hand hit something. Lance’s eyebrows scrunched up. It felt like a stick, but not quite right. It was fabric, but too solid. Lance patted his hand over it some more and glanced down at the object, but not before squinting once more at Adam to make sure he wouldn’t take advantage of the lapse in Lance’s attention. There, in the dirt where Lance’s hand was blindly groping, was the handle of something. What it was, Lance couldn’t be sure. Half of it was buried in the dirt, below the grave.

“I agree with you. We should both just go home and forget this meeting ever happened,” Adam muttered ominously. At least, Lance though it was ominous. Still, Lance kept his eyes down at the ground.

“Is there something down there?” Keith asked.

Lance glanced over at Keith instinctively, then turned back to the grave. After brushing away the dirt that covered the object, Lance was able to pull it the rest of the way out. It glinted in the light that fluttered through the trees above them, even through the dirt that was stuck onto it. The handle of it was wrapped in a dirty bandage. Lance stared at it, dumbfounded. There was a pocket knife in the grave. There was dried blood on the blade, cracking and flaking off.

“Holy shit…” Lance breathed. His hand shook as he stared at the knife.

“What is that?” Adam suddenly interrogated, moving even closer, his voice booming.

Lance recoiled at the sound, pulling the knife closer to himself as he was suddenly being questioned. It occurred to him then that he was tampering with evidence. “I– I don’t know, I just found it,” Lance stuttered.

Adam glowered at him. “Was that in the grave?”

“Uh,” Lance muttered.

Before he could even think of some sort of comprehensible response, Keith was already beating him to it. “That’s mine…” he weakly called out.

Lance looked to him, disregarding how crazy he must have looked to Adam, who couldn’t see Keith at all. His eyes travelled between the blood covered knife and Keith. Nothing was connecting in his head and he couldn’t completely understand what Keith was telling him.

“That’s my knife. I lost it, I…” he cut himself off, staring at the knife in awe.

Lance’s grip on the knife tightened. It was Keith’s. It was Keith’s? That… was insane. Lance hadn’t ever touched anything that was completely and definitively Keith’s. With Keith being a ghost, it was difficult to deal with that pain. Yet there he was, sitting in the grave of his friend and holding an object that belonged to Keith. Except, that wasn’t right. There was blood on it. It was in a grave. It could easily have been the murder weapon. Keith couldn’t have… No, that wasn’t… possible.

Lance’s eyes flicked around rapidly, his brain trying to work to catch up and put the puzzle pieces together. There wasn’t enough information though. He was in the dark.

“Lance! Did you pull that out of the grave?” Adam barked.

Startled, Lance quickly stared up at Adam. That guy was still there, right. He was still staring at Lance. It dawned on Lance; Adam hadn’t noticed him pulling it out of the dirt. From the angle he was at, Lance supposed it could have easily come from his back pocket. At that moment, Lance decided on something that he wasn’t entirely sure was good. His heart pounded and he swallowed thickly before opening his mouth and determinedly meeting Adam’s eyes.

“No, it’s mine. I brought it with me. It just fell out of my pocket.” Lance scrambled to stand up in the grave, watching Adam as he did. There was dirt all along his legs and in his shoes, but he ignored it. Seating himself on the edge of the grave, Lance carefully pulled himself out of the hole and back onto his feet. “It’s getting late,” Lance changed the topic right as Adam began to open his mouth. “I should be heading home before my _mamá_ wonders where I’ve been. She knows I’m out here. She’ll come looking for me soon.” That was a blatant lie, but Lance really just needed an excuse to get him out of there.

“Alright,” Adam conceded. He watched Lance carefully as the boy began to stumble his way backwards through the clearing. Keith followed after, his eyes carefully pasted onto Adam as he advanced toward Lance. Once Keith was just about to pass, Lance turned and began jogging into the woods with Keith at his heel, both of them simultaneously understanding that they had to get away from there and from Adam as soon as they were able.

Lance and Keith booked it back to the entrance of the mountain, all the while, Lance clutched the knife that apparently belonged to Keith. His mind was reeling, his heart was racing, and his lungs were heaving. The two of them trampled through the woods, knocking into tiny trees that were just beginning to grow and snapping twigs in their wake. Well, Lance was. Keith, for obvious reasons, could not do that. The entirety of the woods felt too condensed, like every tree was closing in on Lance and trapping him there forever, He couldn’t hardly breathe. The air was stuffy and his hands were trembling. Every time Lance almost lost grip on the knife, he would stagger in his attempt to keep hold of it, but he never stopped running. He could feel Keith’s intense gaze tearing into him, grabbing at the knife with just a glance, pulling it closer and protecting it even though it wasn’t in his hands to begin with.

Finally, at long last, after what felt like hours, they broke through the edge of the forest and onto the wobbly dirt path that guided them down the mountainside. Lance’s feet caught as he rushed along, nearly pulling him all the way down. Clouds of dirt were kicked up around his feet and he grunted when he nearly tripped and took a tumble near the bottom. Lance and Keith shared a look with each other, glanced up at the mountain behind them, and then continued sprinting across the road and onto the McClain property. Lance had been half expecting to look back and find that Adam had been chasing after them, but he wasn’t there.

“Lance. Lance, wait,” Keith called out. He was slowing to a stop around halfway down the trail to Lance’s house.

Lance stopped too, his momentum carrying him a bit farther before he was able to turn around. “What?” he huffed, out of breath.

“I need that,” Keith stated. His finger pointed to the knife that Lance was still gripping.

Lance stared at Keith before his gaze fell to the knife. “No,” Lance said, disbelievingly. “No, first I need to know why your knife was in that grave.”

Keith’s hand shrank back and he furrowed his eyebrows. “I told you, I lost it. I don’t know how it got there.”

“You lost it?” Lance echoed.

“Yes. Years ago, I lost it. I need it back though.” He took a step forward as if he was going to take it from Lance.

Lance was torn. “Keith, it’s covered in blood,” he reasoned.

There was conflict in Keith’s eyes, like he knew what had probably happened with the knife, but he couldn’t get it out of his head that he needed to have it back. “I… I know… I just need it.”

Lance frowned. He wanted more than anything to give it to Keith, to return the knife that seemed to mean so much to the boy he loved, but he knew he couldn’t. It was just because the knife was clearly tied to the case in some way, but also because Keith couldn’t even hold the damn thing. He was dead. Keith was dead.

A thought dawned on Lance then. If Keith had lost his knife and it was found in a grave, then that could easily have meant that Keith was killed. He could have been buried right there in that clearing, right under Lance’s feet for years and neither of them had known. What if there was more than one person who had been killed on that mountain. Lance quickly looked away from the knife.

“Okay,” Lance decided. “Alright, it’s your knife. Yes. I will give you the knife.” Keith watched him carefully as he said those words. “I’ll just… do that. But not now,” Lance started, dreading everything he was saying even as he made it all up. “We need to use it in our murder investigation.”

“Yeah, so I’ll keep it safe,” Keith insisted.

Lance cringed. “Right, okay, but what if you let me keep it safe?”

Keith squinted in confusion.

“You know, it’s just…” He didn’t have an excuse. “Please! Keith, please, I promise it will stay safe and nothing will happen to it, I… want to help you…” His voice was so soft at the end of his sentence and his heart felt like it was melting when he stared at Keith, trying his hardest to communicate to the other boy just how much he was really trying to look out for him.

There was a pause in Keith’s side of the conversation. He just watched Lance carefully as though he really wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. Finally, he took a small step back. Lance could feel it then, he could feel the tension between them lift and the trust wash over them both. “Okay…” Keith wistfully relented. “You can keep it until we catch the killer.” His hands folded over his chest. Lance couldn’t help but think that he was probably trying his best not to reach out and grab at the knife some more.

Lance nodded. “I’ll protect it as if it were my own,” he promised.

Keith’s eyes flicked between Lance’s, taking that to heart. “I’m trusting you…” he said seriously. Lance’s heart leaped. It was only then that Lance really noticed how dark it was, and he was just standing in his driveway with the boy of his dreams, having a heartfelt, yet dangerous, conversation. “You should get home; your family is probably wondering where you are.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“I’m going to go see what Adam’s doing. I don’t like that he’s up there by himself right now,” Keith confided, his teeth baring a bit in a grimace as he glanced back down the road to the mountain. “Stay safe, Lance. Goodnight,” he added.

A smile swept over Lance’s face, a gentle one that held a lot of meaning. He pulled the knife closer to him. “You too, Keith. Goodnight. Sleep easy.”

Keith returned the smile. Then, he spun on his heel and wandered back down the trail, into the night.

Lance stood there for a moment in the pitch black, clutching a bloody knife that might have been used to murder his friend years ago, watching the love of his life wander away to confront a potential serial killer, and somehow, he felt at ease. It was an ease that put him on edge. He couldn’t explain it. He was in love but he felt head-sick and twisted. None of what was happening should have been happening and he just needed something to hold onto, something to believe in. Just like it had been since the moment he met Keith, Lance’s heart sunk its talons into that boy and held on for dear life.

Nothing was as it seemed anymore.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Lance stared at the ceiling. He blinked. All he wanted was to go back to sleep and not have to get up for the rest of the day, but school awaited. How was he only halfway through the week? He was on the verge of graduating and there was a murder mystery right under his nose, yet still, Lance couldn’t believe how slowly the week was moving. Well, when he wasn’t sneaking around with Keith or falling into graves. Even with those moments, Lance couldn’t help but find he was still tired, bored, and disgruntled every morning when he woke up and realized that school was still a thing he had to attend.

He closed his eyes a moment longer, sighed, then determinedly glared at the ceiling once more. With one powerful kick of his legs, Lance managed to force the blanket off his body and halfway onto the floor. It was time for another day. He used the momentum of his legs to rock himself into a sitting position. Curling forward, Lance stretched his arms and back out, pulling on his muscles and releasing a long sigh as he did. After he was content with his stretch, he relaxed and let his body drop forward. One leg kicked out to the side and over the bed until Lance was able to drag himself up.

“Another day, another… day… Just another one. Man, they never end, do they?” Lance muttered to himself distractedly as he meandered around his room and scoured for an outfit. The knife that Lance had found in the grave, Keith’s knife, was tucked away in the bottom drawer of his dresser and even though he couldn’t see it, he knew it was there. His eyes flicked over to the drawer, sticking there for a moment as he thought about all the reasons why Keith’s knife would have been used and where it would have been taken from.

As Lance was staring at the drawer and recalling everything that had happened the previous day, how suspicious it had all been and how out of place Adam was, even with his excuse, something dawned on him. Lance continued to drill holes into the dresser with his eyes. They grew wider and his breath caught in his throat as the sudden realization hit him like a punch in the gut.

That knife, Lance had touched it. He had held it in his own two hands like it was nothing. Lance had physically stood in that grave too. Not only had he fallen into it when his attention was elsewhere, but he had stayed in it. That in itself would be unnerving enough if Lance wasn’t clairvoyant. Except, he was. That was the issue, though. Lance was able to feel the death and the sorrow of someone when he stood in their place of passing. When Lance had stood there, he hadn’t felt the telltale prodding at the back of his mind. It was empty, that grave, there was nothing in it. There was no feeling, not even a whisper that someone had taken their final breath there.

Romelle wasn’t killed there and it wasn’t with that knife.

Lance was frozen to the spot. Of course, there wasn’t anything particularly damning about that information; it didn’t reveal anything and it didn’t give Lance any sort of lead, but what it did do was tell Lance that there was another area – possibly in the woods – where the murderer had killed Romelle. That knife wasn’t the murder weapon either, it had just been thrown in there. If it had been used to harm anyone, they hadn’t killed them with it, or else Lance would have been able to feel that energy. So that entire area was just a dumping ground in general. There had been evidence of stab wounds found in Romelle’s bones, so that had to mean that they were either done after she was already dead or they were done first, but were not the cause of her death.

Turning away from the drawer, Lance stared off into the distance a moment, if only to assure himself and to calm himself down. It took a lot out of him to think about how Romelle had died, or even that she was dead at all. Lance steadied his breathing. He cleared his head, then started over again, back at square one just to be sure that he was walking through his own thoughts correctly.

Romelle wasn’t killed by the knife. The weapon was dumped there with her. She didn’t die in the grave. Of course, they would all have to wait until Dr. Holgersson came back with the autopsy report on the specifics of her death, but until then, it was safe to assume that the knife in the grave with her was the same knife used to stab her.

That changed things a little bit though, didn’t it? When Lance really thought about it, there weren’t a whole lot of possibilities for how it could have gone down. No matter how much Romelle really wanted to leave and would take a deal at face value for it to happen, she was still an intelligent girl. Lance had known her, albeit not extremely well, but well enough to know that she wasn’t completely comfortable with the mountain and she wasn’t a huge fan of all the winding trails and the endless forests, she had always been attracted to that one circle where Lance had met her every time. All that Lance knew for sure was that Romelle didn’t just go onto the mountain for the sake of it. Being as people orientated as Romelle was, it was difficult to isolate herself so thoroughly. If she went there, she went there to hide so she could have privacy, and her spot was the clearing.

Where her body was found.

If she hadn’t been killed in that area, only dumped there, then it was likely that she hadn’t met anyone on that mountain at all. She hadn’t been up there of her own accord. Lance knew Romelle was adventurous, but not enough to be lured like that. So, maybe she was killed somewhere else and then dragged there, or perhaps she had been held hostage and taken to the forest where she was killed then dumped, and even then, perhaps she had been ambushed on her way to the clearing and then buried in it. So that begged the question; why was she buried there, of all places? The answer was simple; the killer knew what it meant to her.

In the end, Lance wasn’t any closer to finding the killer, but he was sure that he had a better grasp on the person that he was looking for. Male, at least nineteen, charming, attractive, and knew Romelle. That may not have seemed like a lot, but when Lance thought about it, it was actually a huge help. Romelle wasn’t just buried in the clearing, she was buried under the exact tree, _her_ tree. They didn’t just know Romelle, they _knew her._

And maybe that was what scared Lance the most. They knew her, all the way down to the place she went to for peace and quiet, and they still chose to take her life. Lance was chilled to the bone by just the thought that someone in their small, lazy town could do that. The question stuck in Lance’s mind. Had he buried her there because it had always been her place of peace and he figured it would let her rest easy there? Or had it been a carefully planned and executed attack on Romelle to make sure that even the clearing which she loved would be distorted until it was nothing to her but a coffin of anguish?

But Lance didn’t dare expect an answer on which was the real reason. It was one of the rare times in Lance’s life when he found that never knowing would be more comforting than knowing the truth.

And with that, Lance got ready for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should make art for this thing. I haven't, but I should.


	7. Scapula

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello! Welcome back, y'all! Hope you're ready for a little more Keith perspective. There isn't a lot of Keith perspective in this fic, but there is _some._

Lance fidgeted at his spot on the playground bench, his fingers tapping against his skin and creating a hollow, almost drum-like sound. It was a comforting noise, one that helped Lance focus. What he was focusing on? That was a different story. It seemed to Lance that, as of late, he couldn’t focus on anything. That was understandable, in his opinion, given the circumstances. The strange part, the part that Lance was having trouble getting over was that everyone else in the town seemed just fine. Even though Lance was one of a few people that actually knew about Romelle, he still felt like there should have been some sort of shift in the balance of things. There wasn’t much of a shift when she originally went missing though, so maybe Lance was just thinking in hindsight.

At that moment, Pidge and Hunk returned from the school where they had been retrieving their lunch. Lance wasn’t particularly hungry, opting to leave his own lunch in his locker for a snack on the way home. He knew he had to eat eventually, but with all the thoughts floating around in his brain, he really couldn’t bring himself to have his lunch. His mind was still in a loop, going over everything he knew again and again. Keith’s knife, Adam on the mountain, the clues they had, everyone who would have known Romelle well enough to figure out her mountain spot. It was just difficult to tell how all the pieces fit together, if they fit together.

“Hey,” Pidge greeted as she plopped down next to Lance on the bench.

“Are you sure you don’t want your lunch, Lance? You’re going to be all squirmy in the next lesson, that’s how you get when you’re hungry,” Hunk commented, joining Lance and Pidge on the bench. He settled his lunchbox onto his lap and began puttering around inside of it as he decided what he would eat first.

Lance released a moody huff and stared at Hunk out of the corner of his eyes. “I’m fine, Hunk, I just had a big breakfast, that’s all,” he assured, waving his hand dismissively.

“If you’re sure, Lance,” Hunk replied. There was a worried caution in his voice, and although it was clearly the voice of a boy who didn’t believe what he was being told, Lance didn’t think twice about it. Hunk was just looking out for his health. He was a good friend in that regard.

At least, that was what Lance was thinking it was right up until Pidge started talking, “Y’know, you’ve been acting weird lately.” The way she said it wasn’t the normal was that Pidge would point things out. She seemed frustrated as she addressed Lance. “I mean, more so than usual,” Pidge added in an attempt to hide her disgruntlement with Lance’s so-called weird behaviour.

“Huh?” Lance dumbly blurted out.

“It’s like you’re hiding something,” she concluded. There was a pinch in her eyebrows, a suspicious one.

On Lance’s other side, Hunk made a noise of agreement. Lance turned to see that his best friend was nodding and chewing a piece of his sandwich. He quickly swallowed so he could say what he was trying to say. “She’s right,” Hunk agreed. “You have been off lately. You know you can talk to us about anything, man.” One of Hunk’s soft smiles graced his face, a sign of his sincerity.

“Guys,” Lance began. He held out his hands placatingly. “I’m not hiding anything. I’m just… thinking,” he finished with. Was that the word that Lance was hunting for? Perhaps, perhaps not.

“Thinking?” Pidge reiterated. She raised an eyebrow, confused.

Lance clicked his tongue. He really wasn’t sure how he was going to explain all the thoughts that were running through his head. He wasn’t sure he could even if he wanted to. There was just so much to mention; the fact that there was a killer in town, Romelle’s death and the discovery of her body, everything going on with Keith. “Yes, thinking. Someone like me has a lot to think about, believe it or not,” he countered, crossing his arms defensively over his chest.

Pidge’s face dropped into one of unimpressed exhaustion. “Oh, I believe it,” she muttered sarcastically.

“Is this about Romelle…?” Hunk asked then.

Lance felt as his heart plummeted into his stomach and was dissolved by the acid there. His entire body was frozen over as the words processed within his mind. Energy evaded him for a moment and he let his arms fall slack from his chest. Lance stared at Hunk, his eyes wide and panicked. They weren’t supposed to know about that, how did they know? Lance swallowed thickly before breathing out a confused, “What…?”

Hunk frowned and pinched his eyebrows together sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Lance. We know you were friends with her. This must be really hard on you, buddy. If you need someone to talk to, man, we’re here for you,” he told Lance, reaching one of his hands out to pat his friend’s upper arm.

“Yeah, Lance, we got your back,” Pidge added.

Lance shook his head and narrowed his eyebrows. “How did you guys know…?” he questioned, his eyes shifting back and forth between Hunk and Pidge.

“I heard from Pidge,” Hunk stated.

Lance turned to Pidge, awaiting her explanation.

“I heard from Matt, who heard from dad, who heard from mom, who heard from the people at work, who all heard from Nyma, whose husband, Rolo is on the police force. I’m sure everyone knows by now, though… If they don’t, then they will soon,” Pidge revealed. She looked down at her feet as though she were ashamed to be telling Lance about this. Her shoes shuffled in the dirt as she kicked them back and forth.

Unsure of what he could even say to that, Lance just stared at her. Obviously, everyone was going to find out eventually, but it was still a slight shock to Lance’s system that it was happening right then. “She was murdered,” Lance found himself saying. He wasn’t completely sure why that was what he chose to tell them, but he supposed that some part of him didn’t want everyone to think that she killed herself or that it was an accident. Someone had hurt Romelle, and there wouldn’t be any rest until that person was found. Not as long as Lance was around.

“Yeah, we heard about that too,” Pidge answered. “They’re saying it was definitely intentional.” She stared off into the middle distance, her lunch still in her hands. She squeezed her sandwich in her fists and glowered at the main road. “Who would do that?” she murmured angrily.

“That means there’s a killer in Lionsville, doesn’t it?” Hunk worriedly piped up.

“Yeah, Hunk, it does,” Lance replied. “And that son of a bitch won’t get away with it.”

Hunk nodded in agreement, although there was trepidation in his voice when he spoke again, “That’s really scary, guys. I mean, we all know each other around here, right? I can’t think of anyone would even be capable of doing something that horrible.” He shivered.

“Killers are wolves in sheep’s clothing,” Pidge cryptically said. “Someone in this town isn’t who we think they are.” An empty breeze flowed past them and further settled the silence that followed Pidge’s ominous words.

Lance stared at Pidge, suddenly realizing just how serious the situation truly was. Before, the only threat that Lance could truly think of was against himself. If anyone noticed that he was snooping around, then it was on him, but Keith was there with him.

Hunk sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping forward a bit. “I always thought Romelle ran away,” he mumbled dejectedly.

“I did too,” Lance agreed. Lunch was rapidly becoming infinitely less fun than it had been at the start.

“Just like those other girls,” Pidge commented.

Lance’s eyes immediately locked onto her. “What?” he stated before his brain could even process the words that were leaving his mouth. He found himself saying a confused and slightly shocked ‘what’ a lot lately. It seemed that even when Lance didn’t think he could be surprised by anything further, something always came around the corner and smacked him in the face. This was one of those times.

Pidge didn’t even seem to notice the weight of her offhanded comment. She blinked up at Lance, still distractedly chewing on her sandwich. “What?” she echoed.

“What other girls?” Lance insisted. This was important and Pidge was just sitting there like nothing had been said at all.

Hunk piped up in between bites of his sandwich, “Oh, yeah, there were other girls that went missing, you’re right.”

Lance glanced back and forth at his two best friends, still waiting for an explanation. “Guys, what happened?”

Pidge stared at Lance thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t know about that, would you? You weren’t here yet. Yeah, there were a couple girls who went missing years ago. They were at our school. Well, they’d be graduated by now, but back then they were, what, tenth year? Eleventh?” She stared around Lance at Hunk.

“You’re about right, they all would have been ten or eleven, I think,” he nodded, frowning as he spoke.

“Who were they? What happened to them?” Lance frantically question. He could hardly keep himself still, shifting around on the bench in anticipation.

“Man, it’s been so long.” Pidge squinted at the sky. “Let me think… There was that one girl who went missing when I was in kindergarten. I remember because dad wouldn’t let me step foot outside of the house without Matt coming with me. I think the girl’s name was Zethrid…? Everyone thought she wandered up the mountain and got lost. There was a huge search for her, I know that,” Pidge recalled.

Lance frowned. “And they didn’t find her?”

“No. Never saw her again,” Pidge huffed. “Then a few years after that, Ezor went missing. Do you remember Ezor, Hunk?”

Hunk, who was listening to Pidge carefully and following along with the story, hummed, “Yeah, you don’t forget someone like Ezor. She was really nice, upbeat and carefree.”

“She was, wasn’t she?” Pidge prattled. “After that, it was Acxa. She was always on the mountain and she hated this place anyway. Literally nobody was surprised when she disappeared. I figured she just got fed up and ran away. We all did. The last one was that blind girl, Narti. That one was weird because she never went up the mountain. I can’t remember what exactly happened with her.”

“She drowned. That one turned out not to be a mystery in the end,” Hunk stated. “That kid found her jacket at the bottom of Taujeer Falls a couple months later.”

Pidge tilted her head and worried her lip in thought, “What kid?”

“The one who lived on that farm. The old abandoned one just outside of town. I can’t remember his name but he used to sit in the back of the class.”

Pidge’s eyes lit up as realization and remembrance crossed her mind. “That’s right, yeah! I do remember that kid actually. I forgot his name too but he had the long hair in his face all the damn time and practically growled when you talked to him. He was a weird dude.”

“What happened to him, anyway? You don’t see him around anymore…” Hunk asked, staring off into the distance quizzically.

“Didn’t…” Pidge paused. “Didn’t he disappear too…?”

There was another bout of silence as the three of them stared between each other. Something dawned on Lance as they continued to stare at each other. A boy who went missing. A loner with long hair who growled at people. Who else would that be except Keith? It had to be Keith. Lance’s blood ran cold as that realization flowed over him. He could feel the hair on his arms begin to stand up. Keith lived in the town recently, he was there when Pidge and Hunk were little. Lance always assumed that Keith had died twenty or so years ago maybe, but this somehow made it all worse, all more palpable. Keith was Lance’s age, roughly. Had he been able to live his life fully, Lance and Keith would probably be nearly the same age.

Except, Keith was around Lance’s age. Another realization hit Lance as that thought fully formed within his brain. Keith’s ghost was around the same age as Lance. He had to have died only a few years prior. At most, Lance estimated about four years ago. Everything was spinning, he felt dizzy. Lance could barely even comprehend the idea that Keith was killed only a few years ago. That was chilling and horrific in ways that Lance could hardly grasp.

“A lot of people have disappeared in the last few years, huh?” Hunk muttered to himself. There was nothing easy about his tone.

“People go missing all the time,” Pidge replied. She tried her best to sound like she wasn’t bothered, like it wasn’t even a big deal that people went missing at all, but there was a wavering that she couldn’t hide. “It doesn’t mean there’s a serial killer. Sometimes, people just get lost in the woods.” She returned to the sandwich that she had been half-heartedly gnawing on. “Tragedies happen,” she assured. It sounded like she was trying to convince everyone on the bench more than anything.

Lance nodded along. He didn’t believe a word she said though. Without really consciously putting any effort into the action, Lance let his eyes follow the kids that were racing around on the playground in front of him, yelling and laughing as they scurried and scuffled. None of them understood what was really happening in the town. Not even just the kids, just none of them. No one. There wasn’t a single person in town who could truly say what was going on for certain.

Well, there was one person. One man. And Lance was going to find him.

And as he stared at the kids on the playground, the thought crossed his mind that it was only a matter of time before another kid was picked off on that horrid excuse for a mountain.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Keith sighed heavily. His eyelids drooped and blinked slowly before opening them back up minutely to glare out across the trees that flurried out below him. Water rushed rapidly through a crook in the rocks by his dangling feet until it came to the edge of a cliff where it flowed off in droves. The noise was incredible. From the top, it was gentle enough that Keith could hear everything around him normally, just with the added effect of a stream, but near the bottom, it was deafening. Keith knew, he had been down there countless times.

It was a dangerous cliff. One could easily tumble over the edge if they weren’t careful around all the nooks and crannies in the rocks. The base of the waterfall wasn’t that much better with all the spray from the falls coating the trails nearby, slicking up everything and making it slippery. Still, Keith wasn’t overly concerned with falling over the edge, especially when he wasn’t even corporeal for the moment.

The way that the rocks had managed to form on the cliff, it appeared like a throne was carved there just for a king to stare out over all the land, down the mountain and across the town. Keith wasn’t much of a king though. He was a king of no one and a protector of nothing. Still, he seated himself in the place of rule at the top of the waterfall, with his legs dangling over one armrest and his neck tilted back across the other. He experienced the feeling of all his blood rushing down to his head just as his hair was draped down and blowing in the slight breeze. He felt like a waterfall of his own.

Suddenly, Keith became aware of a crunching of boots over sticks and leaves somewhere behind his rock-chair. He lackadaisically lolled his head to the side to determine where the sound was coming from. Half of him hoped that it was the killer so he could finally catch the bastard, but the other half that was tired and worn out wanted it to be Lance so that Keith wouldn’t have to bother getting up.

As Keith’s eyes struggled to see through his hair, he was barely able to make out the upside-down figure of Lance stumbling his way through the forest toward Keith’s perch on the cliff.

“Hey, Keith!” Lance called out.

Keith smiled to himself as he tilted his head back up to sit properly. “Hey,” Keith replied casually. His voice felt a little bit off when he spoke from having his head tilted back for so long. He cleared his throat. His voice was still just as gravelly as it always was. “How was school?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder as Lance approached.

“Good. I learned some interesting things,” Lance told him, nodding. He folded his arms over the top of the chair, leaning against the boulder that the throne seemed to be carved from. There was something antsy in the way he chipped away at the rocks with his fingernails and shifted his eyes over to Keith and then down again repeatedly.

“That is what school is for,” Keith commented back, narrowing his eyes at Lance in suspicion. “I’d be more concerned if you didn’t learn anything at all…”

Lance smiled to the side. “That is true, Keithy,” he stated. “Hey, y’know, we should play a game.”

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he shifted in his seat again. “Uh, a game?”

“Yes, Never Have I Ever. You know the rules, don’t you?” Lance asked, holding up his fingers and grinning.

There was something going on, but Keith couldn’t figure out what it was. Lance was being so strange and acting so jittery. Had something happened at school? Was there new information in the case? There was no way Keith could tell what was really happening, no matter how hard he squinted at Lance. Shifting farther up until his elbows were on the armrest behind his back, Keith slowly answered, “Yeah, I know the rules… What is this about?”

Lance ignored his question. “Great! I’m going to start. Never have I ever lived on a farm!”

Keith’s face morphed from one of confusion to one of incredulous confusion. Confusion squared. He wasn’t just lost on what Lance was doing, but he was lost on Lance’s idiocy as well. “You live on a farm right now,” Keith reminded him.

Lance’s eyebrows shot up, then came back down in a flustered glare as he sputtered out a response, “Okay, yeah, well, shut up, Keith! I meant an _abandoned_ farm! Obviously…” He folded his arms over his chest and tried his best not to look like he hadn’t momentarily forgotten he lived on a farm.

“You can’t live on an abandoned farm, then it’s not abandoned.” Keith was getting caught up on the wrong problems here.

“You know what I mean!” Lance huffed.

Keith, still just as baffled as when Lance originally arrived, sighed, “No, I really don’t. Lance, what are you talking about with abandoned farms?”

“Okay!” Lance exclaimed, as if Keith’s questions were the biggest inconvenience in his life. “I just… wanted to know where you live…” he admitted, his voice tapering off and his shoulders slumping a little bit. He looked so dejected.

Keith watched Lance for a moment. There was a well of sadness in his eyes, one that couldn’t be covered no matter how much pouting and arm-crossing the boy did. It tugged on Keith’s heart a little bit every time that pain formed in Lance’s expression because he knew that the core of it was the fact that Lance thought he was dead. That was what it was then. Lance wanted to hear about Keith’s life. He wanted to learn about Keith himself and what his life was like when he was alive. Well, little did Lance know that his life was still occurring, but there was some stuff that Keith could share. And maybe the fact that Lance wanted to hear Keith’s tales made his heart twirl around and twist itself into all sorts of lovey-dovey balloon animal shapes, but you’d be hard-pressed to get Keith to admit that.

“Where I live,” Keith repeated.

He kicked his feet down from the armrest and swivelled himself around so that he sitting in the chair properly. Lance, rightfully so, took that motion as an invitation to climb onto the edge of the boulder behind the chair and settle himself into the indent that acted like a backrest. Keith watched as Lance’s legs dropped into place, one tattered shoe landing on each armrest next to Keith. They often sat like that when they were up by the mountain. Sometimes they would switch. It was born of a time when they had both been fighting over who got to sit in the chair and ended up in a shoving match that nearly resulted in Keith getting pushed over the waterfall. Now, they just shared it. Keith liked it much better that way. His heart felt at ease whenever Lance was close.

Keith thought about his response to Lance’s odd way of questioning him. He didn’t have a very good tale to tell. There wasn’t a whole lot of happiness in his life. “I live on the mountain,” Keith began. “I have a house. You knew that. I’ve told you that before.”

Lance hummed behind him. “You did say that but I didn’t think you were actually serious.”

Leaning forward, Keith turned around to give Lance a flat, unimpressed look. “Why would I make that up?”

He shrugged nonchalantly with a smile on his face as he laughed, “I don’t know, it seems like a stupid thing to make up. You don’t joke around anyway so I really should have guessed you’d live on the mountain. You’ll have to show me your shack sometime.” He snickered to himself above Keith’s head.

“It’s not a shack, fuck off,” Keith muttered, turning back around to face the waterfall again. “My old man built it when I was twelve, but before that we did live on a farm.” He pointed off in the other direction on the other side of the mountain from where the town was. “It’s abandoned now, you’re right. How did you know that?”

Lance shuffled above him, his feet tapping and his fingers fidgeting. He was a squirmy kid, Keith knew that, but something about his movements was much more concentrated than it usually was. “You… look like a country boy…?” Lance defended, doing his best to make it seem like that was actually the reason and it didn’t have anything to do with what Keith knew it had to do with. Lance had gone snooping. Maybe not into Keith himself, but after the entire incident with Keith’s missing knife, it wouldn’t have been surprising to learn that Lance had gone hunting around into Keith’s personal affairs. Keith couldn’t even fault him for it, even though the breach in that privacy that he always felt he had with Lance did spark a flame of irritation in his chest.

Still, Keith wasn’t ready for the conversation about why he was dead but not completely, and so, he nodded his head slowly as if Lance’s answer made the most sense to him. “I knew you were observant, but that’s a little too dead on, even for you,” Keith chuckled.

Above him, Lance seemed to huff out a laugh that was just too much to sound anything other than relieved. “Well, then you probably don’t want to know what else I know about you,” he ominously teased.

“Oh?” Keith tilted his head back to stare up at Lance with the same bantering lilt to his voice. “Such as, what?”

Lance smiled down at him. It always made Keith’s heart tug. “Like the fact that you rub your thumb over your fingers when you’re upset or that when you’re agitated, you cross your arms and play with your sleeves in your fingers. I noticed that you like to sit up high where you can see everything, especially at night, but you prefer to be facing the mountain trail. I noticed that you inspect everything on the mountain when you pass by it, like plants and trees. I don’t know what you’re looking for but I know you keep mental track of it all. You hardly ever say hello or goodbye when we talk.”

Lance’s hand floated down to brush Keith’s bangs out of the way of his face. Carefully, Lance’s hand smoothed through Keith’s hair, the touch barely registering with the barrier between worlds faltering it. Keith let his ghost form manifest as closely to reality as he could get it, allowing Lance’s skin to connect with his. It was still cold, but not to Keith. A shiver ran through Lance’s arm as he played with Keith’s hair, but he never pulled away. Keith’s gaze shifted from one of Lance’s eyes to the other, taking in his intense stare as fully as he could. There was too much gentle softness in the way he stroked Keith’s head. The phantom feeling of Keith’s heart continued to tug and whine.

He continued, “I know that you pretend you keep your hair long because it’s inconvenient to get it cut but it’s actually just because you like the way it looks and you think you have to justify it. I know you’re an only child, but I think there’s someone you’re close to other than me who you consider a sibling because there’s a light in your eyes when I talk about Veronica. You look sad when I talk about my _mamá,_ though…” Lance trailed off, glancing away as if he had suddenly touched upon something he shouldn’t have. His hand stopped smoothing through Keith’s hair momentarily.

Any hint that Keith had been teasing Lance had faded away until he was just staring up at Lance in something akin to wonder. They weren’t huge observations, but they were enough that Keith could tell Lance had been paying close attention to him over the course of their time together. And what Lance was saying was true. It was all true.

Keith slowly tilted his head back down, Lance’s hand sliding along through his hair until it was rested on the crown of his head. The waterfall was loud enough that Keith could almost block out the flood of memories that was washing over him at the mention of Lance’s mother as well as the indirect mention of Keith’s own mother. He sighed to himself and let his shoulders slouch down the backrest of the rock chair. Through lidded eyes, Keith stared down across the valley and let himself get lost in the view as his mouth spilled stories of his childhood.

“Our farm wasn’t that big actually,” he started. “We had animals though; horses, pigs, cows, chickens. I had to feed them every morning, but I liked doing that. One of the horses was mine. Her name was Vermillion, but I called her Millie.”

Lance’s voice was still gentle when he spoke again. “Why am I not surprised you named her after the colour red,” he laughed.

Keith snorted and smacked Lance’s leg next to him, earning a yelp from the boy behind him. “She was a red horse,” he defended.

“Right, that makes it even more surprising. You? With a red horse? I would never have guessed.” Keith could practically hear Lance rolling his eyes and smiling to himself.

 _“Anyway,”_ Keith very deliberately said, “Millie was my best friend and we used to go riding up this mountain all the time. She liked the apple trees over in the west field.” Keith pointed off in the other direction to illustrate where that was.

Keith continued, “I lived on the farm with my parents… My mother was a very skilled craftswoman. She was always building something out of nothing and she knew her way around any sort of wildlife. She taught me how to tell different plants apart, which ones were safe and which ones weren’t, what wood was best for what, how to read tracks in the mud. That’s what I’m checking in the woods, if you were wondering. She gave me that knife you have. For survival.

“My dad was a bit of a musician. He had a guitar that he’d play for me and we’d sing songs together. Sometimes, he would play and sing while Mom and I danced. Well, she would dance, I would just stand on her toes. Dad was really fearless. He always wanted to go investigate things even though it would probably get him hurt, and it always did get him hurt, but he did it anyway.” Keith smiled lopsided as he remembered more and more details about his childhood. “He was born in Texas and he moved here. He had a southern accent that I used to be really embarrassed of, but now I just miss it.

“Krolia and Akira, those were their names,” Keith told Lance with a hard look in his eyes. The pain that stung the back of his eyes and the bridge of his nose only grew.

“What happened to them…?” Lance tentatively asked. His hand had picked up with petting his hair again and Keith subtly leaned into the touch.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Keith cautiously replied, “Mom left us when I was eight. Few years later, Dad passed away in a fire. He was a firefighter, but I guess it’s different when it’s your own house…” He let his eyes close for a moment, his lungs filling up with air as if he were learning to breathe again. That was something that Keith found himself having to relearn a lot; how to let himself breathe.

Suddenly, there was a weight on his head. Keith startled back into the seat. Lance was bent over with his arms wrapped around the top of Keith’s head and his chest pressing into Keith as well. One of Lance’s legs was shoved up against Keith’s entire arm. Keith, stiffened by the fact that he had no idea what was happening, shifted his widened eyes around as if it would help him better see Lance.

“What’s going on?” he asked. His hands fluttered in front of him while he attempted to figure out how to use them in a situation like this.

Lance tilted his chin down and laughed a little bit, his warm breath quivering Keith’s bangs. “I’m hugging you,” he told him.

“That is not what this is,” Keith grumbled. Had he been in his human form, his heart would have been beating so fast he would almost be worried that Lance would notice. Whether that was from the fact that Lance was draping himself over Keith or because the sudden weight had freaked him out still remained to be seen.

“Well, I’m trying to.” Lance pulled back then, his hands uncurling from Keith’s forehead and instead moving to the backrest for support. Keith slid down even farther, his eyes instinctively meeting Lance’s where the boy was folding forward, his head upside down.

Keith glanced away, pretending it was a result of his melancholy thoughts about his parents rather than from the fact that this bright light of a human being was smiling goofily down at him with nothing but care in his glittering eyes. Just thinking about that was too much for Keith. Luckily, no blood in his ghost body meant no blushing, but that didn’t stop the way his skin felt like it was melting, as if his soul, itself, was on fire. “You just dropped yourself onto my head,” he moodily complained.

“I didn’t want to get up,” Lance admitted, a laugh escaping him at the end of the sentence.

“Wow, I can tell you really care about my backstory,” Keith drily commented. He retreated in on himself even farther, his arms moving to cross over his chest.

Lance’s hands moved away from the stone seat to pull Keith’s arms back open. “No, no, I do ca– Whoa!” his eyes widened and he nearly took a nose dive forward, nothing supporting him on the seat anymore. Luckily, Keith’s quick reflexes kicked in right in time and he managed to grab Lance’s arms, stopping his imminent descent. They both froze. “Whoa,” Lance repeated. “Thanks, I almost just did a somersault,” he nervously huffed a laugh.

Keith glared at him. “Why can’t you sit normally?”

Lance clicked his tongue in response. “Because I need to see your face. Listen. I do care about your story and your parents. That’s why I asked. And…” his face turned more solemn, and even though he was upside down, Keith could still see the emotion that swam behind his gorgeous eyes, “… And I’m sorry that you’ve been through that. I just wanted you to know that you’re not alone and there are still people who care about you.”

He paused. Keith could feel it. He knew what Lance was going to say. Well, he didn’t know what he was going to say exactly, but he had the face he always wore when he was on the verge of saying something serious that would hint at the fact that Keith was dead.

“There are still people who remember you,” Lance softly told him. And all of a sudden, Keith noticed just how lightly he was holding Lance’s arms, almost like he wasn’t touching him at all. He gripped Lance tighter, hoping that either of them would be able to feel it, but of course, the pressure didn’t change.

“I don’t need people to remember me,” Keith told him seriously. “Just you.”

Lance blinked owlishly at that, his lips quirking inwards as if he had inhaled sharply. It looked strange upside down. Keith wasn’t sure if he was actually seeing a blush on Lance’s cheeks or if he was just wishing it into existence, but either way, it made him pull back a bit as the weight of realization hit him. Why had he said that?

“Anyway!” Keith loudly announced.

Lance laughed obnoxiously. “Yes, anyway, good– good talk! Buddy!”

“Buddy!” Keith repeated. There was fear in his eyes. He laughed too, as if he had never laughed a day in his life.

Lance quickly flipped himself back to sit upright on the seat. They both blindly stared out across the waterfall, neither knowing what to say. Never in his life had Keith felt quite as flustered as he did right then. The residual feeling of his heart that normally lay dormant beneath his sternum was beating out of his chest and his face felt like it was on fire. Not even temperature-wise, but just from how jittery he was feeling. His hands shook a bit after holding Lance up for that long and then suddenly being freed of the burden. His entire stomach was aflutter. If someone were to peel back the thick layer of panic encasing Keith’s brain, they’d find the pure happiness and love that was vibrating within his thoughts.

“So,” Lance cleared his throat, “how about this weather…?”

Keith nodded in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps some of this information will change any theories that are brewing in those heads of yours?? Perhaps not. Who knows!


	8. Temporal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so, I feel like this chapter is bad in a way that the others aren't. For that reason, I'm gonna trigger warning right here, just be cautious when you read this. I'll do that with a few other chapters, but this'll be the first.

Sometimes, when bad things happened, there were still little shimmering specks of light and hope amongst all the sadness that reminded one of the good times. Things wouldn’t always be bad. Lance knew that he would eventually start to feel normal again and he wouldn’t be so jumpy and paranoid about everyone. Once they caught the killer and they had a proper funeral for all the murdered girls, Lance would be able to live normally again. Until then, Lance had to make-do with his little moments of happiness that would pop up out of nowhere, ready to make him happy again.

Today, that thing was spending hours on the mountain with Keith. Lance adored spending time with Keith, and while they spent a lot of time together and had been extremely close friends ever since Lance had moved there, he had still never learned much about Keith’s parents. It was just a touchy subject, and Lance knew that from the look in the boy’s eyes. Lance could never be sure if it was the result of a death or of his parents leaving him, but he knew that there was something painful in those memories of Keith’s and he wasn’t about to pry. Lance understood more than anyone else the pain of having a loved one leave for a better life, so even though Keith had never actually shared anything personal relating to his parents, Lance always felt like there was a sort of solidarity between them.

Then this day happened. Lance wasn’t quite sure what made Keith want to open up his parents specifically this time, but he was sure glad that Keith had. It wasn’t just because it showed how much he truly trusted Lance, but it was also important to Lance that he understand Keith, and not in the common sense of the word, but in the sense that he wanted to be the one to stand under Keith, to support him and help him hold up all the weight that bore down on his shoulders. There was also the reasoning that Lance was amazed and baffled by the fact that Keith hadn’t died in the 1980’s like his style of dress would suggest, but he was actually around the same age as Lance. That was incredible. He wondered briefly if he could have properly been with Keith, been friends with Keith, introduced him to his friends, everything, if he had just moved to Lionsville a few years sooner.

Either way, Lance was on top of the world from his interaction with Keith, but in the calming sense that made him feel like he truly belonged somewhere. He was also a blushing mess. Just thinking about how cute Keith looked, even when Lance was upside, stuttering out how he really only cared if Lance noticed him or not. That set Lance’s heart right into a frenzy. How Keith could not see what he did to Lance when Lance was so obvious about it, it was a mystery. Lance didn’t much mind, not if his secret unrequited ghost crush remained as mysterious as Keith’s obliviousness was.

So, as Lance made his way back down the mountain, high as a kite from being so close with Keith, it was only fitting that something in the sleepy little town of Lionsville – where you couldn’t walk five feet without hearing about the murder case – would be waiting for Lance to ruin his happiness. And that was it. That was when his moment stopped, when his bubble was popped, when the clouds that had parted to let in some sunshine decided to close right back up again.

Beside the mountain, parked on the dirt road at the base, there was a police car. Police cars in Lionsville used to be a welcome thing for Lance because it meant that the police station was having their annual fundraiser where they would sell calendars and chat about the weather. It was starting to become a recurring thing, however, that Lance’s heart would speed up into a rapid panic whenever he saw one around the mountain.

Trying his best not to work himself into any kind of attack, Lance scuttled his way down the mountain, across the road, and up the dusty driveway that led to the little, worn farmhouse that he now called home. It was getting later with the evening sun resting comfortably on the horizon as if it were waiting for Lance, like it had something to tell him. He feared that that was what he would find when he finally arrived at the house. The bright light of the sun in his eyes, haloing out around his house, and the cool breeze that pushed him closer to the door step both whispered loudly at him with an urgency that made Lance’s legs move a little faster. He listened to his feet smack into the dirt underneath him and tried to ignored the way it synchronized with his heartbeat.

Finally, after what felt like hours rushing up the driveway to the house, Lance reached the front door. The screen was shut but the inner door was propped open slightly with the doorstopper. As Lance bounded up the porch stairs, skipping a step in his uneasiness, he could hear the back half of a conversation that was going on just beyond the ajar entrance. Unlatching the screen door, Lance burst through, stopping short to stare into the living room of people.

“Lance,” his mother said. There was apprehension in her tone and worry in her eyes. She leaped up from her seat on the couch to go greet her son, arms opening wide to catch him in a hug.

_“Mamá,”_ Lance replied, hugging her right back the moment she reached him.

From over her shoulder, Lance could see the four other pairs of eyes that watched him carefully. One of them was his sister, Veronica, who was also tentatively standing from her seat to join the two at the entrance. That same uncertainty that was in their mother’s eyes was also in hers, and that was what really worried Lance and sent a spoonful of fear stirring in his stomach. When his mother was worried about Lance, it was because she thought he was out doing something dangerous again. When Veronica was worried about Lance, it was because something had _actually happened_.

The other pairs of eyes belonged to Sheriff Zarkon and Deputy Sendak, who were both seated on the couch opposite to where Lance’s mother and sister had been, as well as Dr. Holgersson who stood solemnly in the back, by the lamp in the corner with his hands clasped in front of him.

“What’s going on…?” Lance cautiously questioned, making direct eye contact with the doctor as he did, still hugging his mother. Dr. Holgersson’s eyes didn’t change, but there was a dip in his eyebrows that Lance didn’t particularly like. He said nothing.

That same cold, dark, sickening energy washed over him. The one that had followed that ring the last time he had been visited by the investigators. He could feel the way his body became a deadweight, a walking corpse that was drained of all life by the pain, agony, and utter darkness from whatever those three men carried with them. It felt like wading through tar just to remove his hands from his mother’s back as she let him go.

“Oh, Lance, I’m so sorry,” his mother softly wailed, pulling her hands over Lance’s hair to soothe him. “It’s about Romelle.”

As if Lance couldn’t tell by the twitchy sparks in his arms and legs that told him to run, to leave, to get away from that room. He glanced between his mother and Veronica anyway, hoping either of them would fill in the rest of the blanks.

“Maybe you should come sit down,” Veronica whispered. She grabbed Lance’s arm and pulled him over to the living room once again. His mother followed behind them. Lance and Veronica settled down into the loveseat while their mother took her spot in the armchair. Across the wooden coffee table, the police officers stared at Lance, hard. It was so serious that Lance couldn’t even begin to think of a joke that would lighten the tension suffocating him. Even the ever-pleasant doctor in the back wasn’t offering Lance a comforting smile.

They all sat there, everyone feeling out of place, but nearly as out of place as they should have been feeling. No one bothered to ask him to remove his dirt-covered shoes or interrogate him about having a jacket in this weather. His mother didn’t even question him about the mountain. She was always on him about the mountain. Lance swallowed the lump in his throat, wondering how this could possibly get worse than it already was. His friend was dead in a hole under her favourite tree. What else was there?

“Lance McClain,” Sheriff Zarkon greeted him, if one could even call that a greeting.

Lance nodded his head, his eyebrows already furrowed together as he attempted to understand what exactly was going on. “What happened?” he immediately asked. There was no time for any sort of formality, not with the eerie set up of this entire encounter. “Is there new evidence?” It was a little optimistic of him to ask such a thing with the heavy blanket of tension slowly crushing them all into the carpet, but he asked anyway, a tinge of hope still left in his mind after the good time he had with Keith.

“Well, not exactly,” Officer Sendak offered. He was more expressive than Zarkon was, but somehow, Zarkon’s no nonsense approach to all sensitive matters was what Lance really needed at that moment.

“We have reason to believe Ms. Pollux was pregnant when she was murdered,” Zarkon stated. There was little remorse or care in his voice.

Lance sat there for a moment, somewhat stunned by the information. “I… What…?” he dumbly muttered. He had so many questions and no idea where to even begin. Confused, Lance began to stutter out, “How– How do you know…?”

At that, Dr. Holgersson in the back piped up. “There were underdeveloped bones found amongst her remains that were consistent with a fetus, perhaps fourth or fifth month…” he stated, his words slowly becoming more and more spaced and his eyebrows slowly worrying together as he watched Lance.

“No, that’s…” Lance tapered off. Tears welled up in his eyes. Unrivalled pain and anger throbbed at his heart. His hands desperately clenched and unclenched his legs, looking for anything that would ground him as his mind filtered through a thousand different emotions every second. The pain his chest was so vivid and real. He began curling forward, his entire body on fire from the agony of the new information coupled with the unwavering, buzzing feelings of sorrow that the visitors carried into the house with them. Lance shouted, “No! She wasn’t pregnant!”

A hand tapped against Lance’s shoulder, drawing in his rabid attention. Veronica stared at him with regret and sympathy in her eyes. “Lance, it’s a lot, but–”

“No!” Lance yelled again. “Who was the father?!” He stared accusingly around the room, making eye contact with every single person there. They all watched him like he was a cornered animal about to be caged, each with varying levels of empathy. No one spoke. “It was _him!_ Whoever killed her did that to her too! _¡Ay, Dios mío!”_

He pushed himself back. His legs jumped and his hands came up to shake uncomfortably in the air. It was all crashing down on him at once and it was to much for him to bear. This girl, Romelle, she had been murdered and buried under the one place that she had felt safe and to top all of that off, she was carrying their child. Lance could barely comprehend the amount of pain he was experiencing. It all just pulsed behind his eyes. His breathing became sporadic. The thought that it could have been rape didn’t even cross his mind, but when it did, he had to restrain himself from pulling out his own hair.

“Lance, breathe. Please, _mi hijo,_ calmly now,” his mother was whispering to him. Lance hadn’t even noticed when she had rushed over to pet his hair and cheek, soothingly bringing him back down from his frantic hysteria. He huffed out a few more breaths and wiped the tears away from where they had streaked across his face. He hadn’t even meant to get as worked up as he had, but it was all so overwhelming, all at once.

Dr. Holgersson had come out from the corner, his hands primed and ready to help if the need arose. Lance stared at him for a moment before nodding to him. The doctor didn’t look very pleased with the situation, but he cautiously nodded in return before stepping back towards his place by the lamp.

As Lance practiced breathing again, attempting to remember how to feel normal, Zarkon stepped into the open space. “I’m sorry that this news upset you,” he consoled, not even trying to sound as though he was really sorry. “We need to ask you some questions,” he continued.

With a weak nod of his head, Lance agreed to being questioned. Despite how worn he was and how much the darkness that they had trailed into the house was stabbing into the back of his brain, Lance was still driven by his need to find the killer. If that meant answering some questions, then so be it, but Lance was going to get Romelle the peace she deserved and he was going to protect his loved ones while he did it.

“Is there any chance that this baby could be yours,” the sheriff began.

Lance scrunched up his face at that question. He didn’t like the implications behind it at all. “No,” he answered seriously, “I only knew her for two months before she went missing, and we were just friends anyway.” At his side, Lance’s mother heaved a sigh that sounded like pure relief. It didn’t make Lance more relieved though, it only confirmed that Romelle’s pregnancy was thanks to the man who murdered her.

Officer Sendak took notes in the little notepad that he had retrieved from his breast pocket, his large hands barely able to hold the tiny golf pencil that he scribbled with.

“Did she ever tell you that the father was the same man that she was going to run away with?” Zarkon asked.

“No,” Lance replied.

Sendak scribbled some more.

“Did she tell you she was pregnant at all?”

Lance shook his head. “No.”

The sheriff furrowed his brow. “Can you recall if she ever said anything that could have been important or related to her pregnancy in any way?”

Lance thought for a moment, trying to remember a single thing about the girl he had known for two months. It felt like ages ago. They weren’t exactly friends, either.

“It may even be something innocuous that you never thought twice about,” Dr. Holgersson added.

Lance wracked his brain, but he continuously came up empty. There wasn’t anything particularly useful that Lance could think of, and nothing that was even unimportant at the time but held significance in retrospect. All their time together was just… normal, like any other pair of people who didn’t know each other very well. Even with the strangely high degree of trust the two of them had, there still was never anything that really jumped out at Lance as off in the slightest. Something innocuous… Never think twice about… There was nothing…

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything,” Lance concluded. He looked helplessly between the three men, then over to his sister and mother, as if any of them would have the answer.

The two officers looked to each other, some sort of understanding passing between the two of them. Lance watched them both carefully. “One last thing and then we’ll be on our way,” officer Sendak told them.

“We’ll need a DNA sample from you,” Zarkon told him.

At his side, Veronica shifted forward as if she wanted to argue but she didn’t say anything. Lance glanced to her, seeing the look of concerned mistrust on her face. “What for…?” Lance asked, his gaze lingering on Veronica as he addressed the officers. Finally, he turned to them.

“We may need it if new evidence comes up,” Zarkon replied.

“Sometimes DNA can be pulled from bones,” the doctor added, leaning forward as he stated his point. All eyes in the room flicked over to him. “I might be able to figure out the baby’s father if we can get a viable sample.”

Before Lance could speak, Veronica was leaping in, her eyebrows drawn together and her voice firm. “My brother says it’s not his, so it’s not his. He’s not a liar.” She stared the doctor down.

Dr. Holgersson, however, didn’t seem at all deterred by her demeanor, instead offering a comforting smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate that he’s lying. It would rule him out as a suspect, that’s what I’m meaning,” he told her.

Veronica, no matter how unhappy she was with the entire situation, backed off a little bit. Her shoulders never relaxed though. It kept Lance on edge the entire time, only adding to the sparking feeling in the back of his mind and the heavy lead weight that was his body. “Yeah, DNA is fine,” Lance answered. His voice sounded so far away to his own mind for a moment, as if he were hearing someone else speak from across the room. He just wanted this to all be over, he didn’t need to be a suspect in a murder case. Especially not this murder case.

The doctor stepped forward and produced a swab kit from his pocket. As he approached, Lance reluctantly straightened his back and opened his mouth. Dr. Holgersson pulled the Q-tip end out of the vial and positioned it along the inside of Lance’s mouth, gently coating it in cheek cells before removing it and securing it back into the vial.

“Well, that will be all then. Thank you for your cooperation and have a good rest of your night,” the sheriff announced as he stood from the seat and tipped his hat at the family. Officer Sendak followed his lead, nodding to each of the three McClain’s individually before trailing along behind Zarkon in their trek to the front door, which had been left ajar.

“Yes, you as well,” Ms. McClain robotically called back. She looked so shaken up and all Lance wanted to do was hug her. She was a strong woman who didn’t get bothered about anything, but this entire situation was really getting to her. Why wouldn’t it, though? Her own son was the suspect of a murder investigation while the real killer was still out there. None of it was fair.

Dr. Holgersson headed over to the door that his colleagues had already left from. Right as he was about to leave out into the darkening night, allowing them all to stew in the recent events once more, Lance made a decision that he wasn’t even consciously aware he was making. “Hey,” Lance piped.

Pausing, the taller man turned back to face Lance, his expression neutral. “Hm?”

“You better find him.” His voice cracked halfway through the sentence as another round of tears welled up inside him. It was both a threat and a request, like he was begging him to help Romelle, to help everyone in town. His fists shook.

The doctor stared at him for a moment, frozen in time as he halted in the doorway to Lance’s house. There was no smile on his face, not like there usually was. His face seemed so foreign without it, almost alien. “We will,” he stated. A chill ran down Lance’s spine at the way he spoke. There was no promise behind the words, no determination there, but rather, a confirmation.

And without a single other word spoken, Dr. Holgersson turned to face the never-ending darkness that awaited him outside and he stepped over the threshold. The pitch-black night swallowed him immediately. Lance carefully watched as the door shut behind the man, and the moment he heard the telltale click, the entire room lifted. Every darkness that had been brought into their home when that case was brought up, when Romelle’s pain was carried around, it was gone.

Lance breathed again.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

The darkness was unwavering. Normally, Lance found it to be a calming and soothing sort of darkness that overcame the empty fields around them at night. In recent times, however, all his mind could conjure up were images of faces and shadows, like the killer was watching him and taunting him from just beyond Lance’s limited night vision. Somehow, when nighttime fell, the killer felt more like a spirit or a detached legend than an actual, living person. Still, Lance would sit out there and stare intensely into the night, almost wishing that the killer would show up just so that Lance could kick the shit out of him for what he did to Romelle.

This night was different though. Lance didn’t sit outside to relax and he didn’t sit outside to challenge the cryptid-like murderer with his unfaltering glare, instead, he just wanted to shuck the weight that had been cast upon his shoulders and remember that there was still a moment every now and again when it was safe to calm down and regroup his thoughts.

So, Lance sat on the back steps and stared out into the empty fields, purposely choosing to study something that wasn’t that god forsaken mountain. The night didn’t feel threatening and it didn’t feel easing, the night just was. Lance, who let the wind rustle his hair and paint his body in chills, also just was. He had never felt so heavy before in his life, but that was alright, because if he didn’t move a muscle and he just remained where he was, it almost felt like his body wasn’t there at all. He wondered if that was how Romelle felt or how Keith felt.

The door to the back steps whined as it was pushed open, scraping against the worn-out hinges and alerting Lance to the new presence behind him. He instinctively turned to glance at the newcomer, effectively returning all feeling to his body in an almost jarring rush. Veronica stood in the doorway to the house, illuminated by the golden kitchen light. She frowned down at Lance.

“Hi,” she greeted softly. The door cried out again as she let it swing shut. Her socked feet tapped their way down the steps until she could settle in beside Lance on the middle step.

“Hey,” Lance replied. It was then that he noticed she had been carrying a mug in her hand. It was a navy blue which the night was only too happy to swallow up from view. It smelled of chocolate and warmth, if warmth could have a smell. She gingerly handed it over to Lance, half-smiling as she did. Lance accepted it graciously. Just the feeling of a warm beverage in his hands was more than enough to release some of the tension in his body.

“That was a little bit intense. I’m sorry,” Veronica started.

Lance frowned over at his sister. “What are you sorry for?”

“Well, just everything,” she sighed. “The fact that this happened to a girl you knew, and she was your first friend here too. And now the police are questioning you about it and accusing you of things, it’s just not fair. I can tell it’s really weighing on you, so if you need someone to talk to, I’ve got your back.” She concluded with a nod and a firm look directly into Lance’s eyes before turning away to study the distance.

Hands rubbing against the outside of the mug in a nervous gesture, Lance awkwardly nodded and smiled. “Aw, you do have a heart,” Lance joked. He sounded tired and his face probably gave away a good portion of how touched he was, but it was obscured by the night.

Veronica rolled her head back and groaned, “Oh my god.”

“I knew you cared about me secretly,” he continued, teasing her as he sloshed his hot chocolate a little bit.

She shook her head in disbelief. “It’s a wonder. How do I do it?” she sarcastically muttered.

Chuckling, Lance shoved her arm, dislodging her from her seat slightly. She released a startled yelp but quickly regained her balance and laughed along with her brother. There was a genuine smile on her face, which Lance found himself mimicking without thinking about it. She really did have a way of lifting him up, even when everything was crashing down and weighing on him.

They both sat there, enjoying the company of a sibling and just letting the night soak into their skin. Lance sipped on his hot chocolate some more. It warmed him up, radiating heat into his chest. Even when he was trying to clear his brain and let his body descend into calmness built upon chaos, he still couldn’t. His mind continued to mutter small questions into his ears, pondering whether or not the dead would be able to feel the warmth of a hot chocolate when they were so perpetually cold all the time. He sighed into his cup, so tired from all the grief.

“Y’know,” Veronica started. Lance’s eyes flicked over to watch her from the corner of his eyes. She was carefully inspecting the night sky, connecting the constellations with her gaze. As she spoke, that gaze fell slowly onto Lance, displaying the deep concern she felt. Calmly, she spoke, “There’s a lot of death around you.”

Lance furrowed his eyebrows and fully turned his head. “Wow, thanks.”

“No, listen,” she continued. “I know you have your whole thing with seeing the dead, and that’s got to be hard on its own, but now that this entire thing is happening, there’s just more death in your life. That almost sounds like a paradox… What I’m trying to say is that I know you have a mentality like you need to help everyone around you, and I know you probably think this is somehow your fault, and I know that you’re more involved in the world of the dead than most people are, but you’re still you, and there’s no way you can tell me that you make it through life without the things that you see getting to you. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to see what you see and experience what you experience. It’s traumatic.”

Lance shrunk in on himself a little bit, retreating back to his cup. Maybe it was out of embarrassment or maybe it was out of panic at having a conversation about all the fears that he had, but either way, Lance didn’t want to topple over his already precarious stack of worries and force himself to come clean about them all. “It’s not that bad, someone has to help them…” he deflected.

Veronica shook her head, a troubled expression overcoming her features. “See, that’s what I mean. Wanting to help people is a good trait to have, but you can’t disregard yourself, Lance. You don’t get used to seeing dead people, and especially not when you’re as empathetic as you are. If things become too much for you, you’re always allowed to take a break. You don’t owe anything to anyone just because you can see them in the afterlife.”

Lance nodded slowly, listening to the words that his sister was saying but not really sure how he was supposed to believe them. “When… When police or first responders or anyone dealing with death, when they see bodies, they have to remove themselves, don’t they?” Lance rambled. “If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to do the job. There’s a mindset for people who are alive and there’s a mindset for people who are dead, and there has to be that separation. It’s jarring and scary when there isn’t. You have to look at people as anatomy if you’re going to be able to sleep at night, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Veronica agreed.

“What if it’s the other way though? What if you see dead people and you can’t remove them from being dead. If I don’t stay in the mindset that they’re people who are alive, then I wouldn’t be able to walk away from seeing them. I know they’re dead, but if I think about it, it’s too much. I can’t remove myself like that.” His fingers tapped against the ceramic mug as he thought over his next words. “I think sometimes I can’t see the line between being alive and being dead.”

Veronica didn’t say anything, just sitting there, watching Lance and taking in everything that he was telling her. The air around them felt colder than it had before, but he didn’t bother to bundle himself farther into his shirt at all, he just remained there, waiting. It was something that he hadn’t ever admitted. He hadn’t ever had anyone to admit it to though, and there was no real way to bring it up, but it was true. The more that Lance got caught up in the mystery, the more he seemed to get wrapped up in all the stagnant memories of the past. It almost felt like he wasn’t aging anymore, like he would never age again.

“We all cope in different ways,” Veronica cautiously began. “Death is a lot, and it makes you feel ways that you never thought you could feel before, which is normal. You’re allowed to grieve for people who are dead even if you didn’t know them, but you can’t let it stop you from living your life, Lance,” she gently offered, placing her hand on his shoulder in an attempt at comfort. “Even if you think you can handle it, it never hurts to reach out to others about things. You know we’re all willing to help you if you need it.”

Lance cracked a smile, glancing up through his tired eyes at his sister. “Thank you,” he replied. 

She smiled back. “Anytime, little brother.”

Lance’s hands twitched around his cup of slowly cooling hot chocolate and he felt his face heat up slightly as he blurted out his next sentence, “What about a crush?”

Veronica, who had been on the same wavelength as Lance right up until that point, blanked out. Lance watched as the gears struggled to spin the other way in her head and he almost felt bad for the information he was about to unload on her. “What…?”

“I… have a crush… on a guy…” Lance struggled. There was a point to this. He had to tell someone about Keith, not even just for his crush, but also for the all of the things that were going on and how they were all intertwined with the mystery.

“Okay… Abrupt subject change there, but continue,” she muttered.

“Yeah, it’s not a subject change…” Lance awkwardly laughed.

One eyebrow wormed its way up her face in confusion. “What do you mean…?”

“I like a guy…” Lance stated again, blushing furiously.

“Yes.”

“He’s dead.”

There was a pause. They both stared at each other. Veronica hadn’t removed her hand from Lance’s shoulder and he was really starting to feel the searing weight of it the longer his wide eyes met her narrowed ones.

“You like a dead guy…?” she echoed, obvious bafflement bubbling its way out of the words.

Lance broke down then, immediately attempting to burying his face in his arms without spilling his hot chocolate. _“Yes,”_ he whined.

_“Ay dios mio,”_ she sighed, closing her eyes and shaking her head in disappointment.

“I know!” Lance exclaimed, completely embarrassed at that point.

While Lance melted into a puddle, Veronica glared into the middle distance. “How does that even happen…?”

“I met him the day we moved here,” Lance admitted, laughing regrettably to himself. “He’s such a sarcastic asshole but he’s so sweet and caring, and he gets so determined about things. He’s really smart, not just school smart, but survival smart too. And he’s so hot, if you could see him, you’d think he was a model, oh my god.” Lance could feel his entire face on fire and a smile goofily spreading across his features. “He used to live on a farm with his family but he just haunts the mountain now. He likes to protect it. It’s so real, the way he cares about the people who go up there. Wow,” Lance’s shoulders dipped as he hummed out the last part.

Veronica, who had been silently listening to Lance rant about the boy, chuckled to herself. “Wow, is right. You do have it bad, and for a dead kid, no less. What’s his name?”

“Keith,” Lance sighed. He couldn’t help but feel gushy. It was almost painful the way his heart leapt.

“Keith, huh?” she answered, testing out the boy’s name. “When I imagined all the troubles of being able to see dead people, I never thought falling in love would be one of them.”

Lance groaned, “Please don’t mock me… It’s bad enough that I like a dead boy who’s probably straight, I don’t need more misery.”

She just laughed. “How old is he? Or… was he…?” she scrunched up her nose in confusion.

“I don’t actually know, I think he’s around my age though. I don’t know when he died either, but I think it was within the last ten years,” Lance told her, his eyebrows furrowed together. “That’s actually what bothers me most; I’m worried Keith was killed by the same person who killed Romelle,” Lance confided, suddenly turning more seriously. "What if he takes everyone I love?"

Veronica’s smile dropped, “That’s… not necessarily true though… You shouldn’t dwell on that either…” Her face was troubled.

Lance stared at her intensely, attempting to decipher what she was really thinking.

“This town is hiding a lot of things, Lance, but you have to remember that just because you can see into the world of the dead, doesn’t mean you’re immune to it.” Her eyes were haunting.

Lance turned away from her. She was right, but Lance rarely listened to things that were right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've been thinking I should get to writing another fic for y'all. I have some ideas.
> 
> Y'all like City of Ember?


	9. Mandible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'know, sometimes, when I'm writing, I like to act out everything that happens in the scene individually as each of the characters and really rile myself up so I feel the emotions. That helps me to write these things better, but for this fic, I managed to really scare myself and make myself sob and feel heartbroken. This fic was such a ride, y'all, so I hope you feel the stuff. _The stuff, yeah??_ Yeah.

It was a strange thing that the grocery store would be as packed as it was, but Lance supposed that that was what happened when there was nowhere else in town to get food as fresh unless you grew it right at home. Although Lance’s family owned a farm and were perfectly capable of growing their own food, there were still some things that Lance had to go to the store for on occasion, such as milk, more sugar, and some hot sauce for Veronica.

Still, imagine Lance’s surprise when he was standing in the middle of an aisle, inspecting the shelves as he hunted for the hot sauce – it was usually right there but they had recently changed the layout around a bit – and he heard the telltale voice of Allura calling out to him.

“Lance! Fancy meeting you here,” she greeted, smiling brightly.

“Allura, hey!” Lance answered back.

Gesturing back over her shoulder with a pointed finger, she continued, “I just ran into Pidge and Hunk on my way here, and now I’ve run into you. What a coincidence. Shiro is one aisle over, I believe. We’re helping to cater your graduation party, isn’t that exciting?”

Lance’s face lit up at the mention of the graduation party. He had completely forgot about that in all of the rushing around and worrying about killers. She was right, though. Lance was graduating. Well, everyone was graduating, it was a party for everyone, but Lance was the only one graduating from school altogether. There weren’t enough students to hold a proper graduation ceremony for, so every year, they’d include the entire town in the ceremony and every grade would get to “graduate.” There was an entire celebration with food, drinks, music, and an entire dancefloor. Lance looked forward to it every year.

“The grad celebration! That’s right, I forgot about that! Thanks for reminding me!” He paused to smile to himself. “And you and Shiro are helping to cater? Please tell me that means more milkshakes!”

Allura laughed, “No, I’m not making milkshakes, but I am making little blueberry muffins, which I also know you like.” She tilted her head to the side, watching as Lance’s eyes widened, completely taken over by the idea of blueberry muffins.

“Homemade and everything? You’re not using the terrible mix, right?” Lance asked, investigating Allura’s basket for all the ingredients that he knew one needed to make the delicious muffins. No matter how accurately he followed the recipe that Allura had given him, he couldn’t get the muffins to taste anywhere close to Allura’s. Hers were the best and that was just a fact.

Except, as Allura was busy answering Lance with an affirmative on the homemade muffins – she wasn’t one to chinse out – Lance was busy noticing something else, instead. He stared at the basket that she was carrying, which was stock full of bandages on top of all the other groceries that she was buying.

“Hey, are you okay?” Lance worriedly questioned, pointing at the large collection of bandages.

Allura blinked, glanced down to her basket, then chuckled to herself. “Oh, yes, everything is fine, Lance. I haven’t told you yet, but I have exciting news,” she told him, her eyes glimmering.

“Nothing that needs that many bandages is good news…” Lance commented, raising a concerned eyebrow.

“I promise, this is! I got a job offer in Daibazaal!” she practically squealed as she told Lance. “It’s more of a training position, but I’m going to be a nursing assistant. If I work hard enough, I’ll be promoted to working with various different patients, like elders who have difficulty walking or children with low level diseases and infections. This is a huge step, Lance!”

Lance’s heart soared immediately and he wasn’t exactly sure how to properly react, so his body did it for him. He rushed forward and scooped Allura into a hug. “No way, you did it!” he hollered, most likely disturbing many other shoppers in the vicinity. “Allura, that’s incredible!” He knew how she had been working towards a more rewarding position as a nurse for as long as Lance had known her, and even before then. It was an enormous change for her, but it was also the change that Allura needed.

Then the words fully processed in his head. “Wait, Daibazaal?” He stepped back.

“Yes,” Allura confirmed. “The offer is in Daibazaal at Marmora Hospital. I will have to move away for a little while, I’m not sure how long. This position was very difficult to get, and I wouldn’t have even been considered if Dr. Holgersson didn’t recommend me with such high regards. I’ve been working alongside him for sometime, and it’s great, but I just really need to branch out and start my career, Lance.” Her eyes, although overshadowed with guilt and remorse as she forewarned of her leaving, were still shimmering at the thought of finally helping people the way she wanted, and Lance couldn’t fault her for that.

“I… I understand, but…” his eyes travelled back and forth between hers, heartbroken, “…when are you leaving…?”

She worried her lip for a moment, almost as though she didn’t want to let Lance down when he heard the news. “Before the next school year. There’s no concrete date set yet, but I will have to start packing up soon,” she revealed.

“We still have the summer together, right?”

She smiled, almost gratefully. “Yes, I’ll be here for part of the summer.”

Lance’s chest ached at the thought that Allura wasn’t going to be in town anymore, but she would be off living her dream, and that was what Lance wanted more than anything. So, ignoring the desperate panic that urged him to pull her into another hug, Lance laughed and suggested, “Then we have to have as many parties and celebrations as we can! We need to see every movie that comes out, try every dish on every menu in town if you haven’t, go bowling! Oh, if we asked Hunk, I’m sure he could help set up a barbecue! A going-away party; that’s what you need!” So many ideas rolled through his head, all of which he wanted to bring to fruition.

With a grin on her face that deeply told of how used to Lance’s excitable rambling she was, Allura agreed happily to every idea that Lance threw at her.

“I thought I heard wild ideas from the other side of the shelf,” a familiar voice teased.

Lance immediately halted in his endless stream of summer activities. Shiro was standing there, his prosthetic arm clasped onto an overflowing basket of baking supplies and a pleasant expression on his face. “Shiro!” Lance exclaimed. “We were just talking about all the fun things that need to happen before Allura leaves! Did you know Allura was leaving? We’re having a barbecue, you should come!” he rambled.

Shiro placed his free hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Yeah, I heard, Lance. A barbecue is a great idea, but don’t plan too far ahead, you still have your graduation. Speaking of which, what are your thoughts?” Removing his hand from Lance’s shoulder, he held up a box of chocolate cake mix and stared down at the other boxes in his basket. “Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing, or vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing?”

Allura and Lance shared a look. “Both,” they simultaneously agreed.

Pausing, Shiro glanced up at them both, studying the smug looks on both of their faces. “That wasn’t an option and yet I knew that’s what you’d both pick anyway,” he muttered. “Strawberry icing is also an option though.” He held up a container of pink tinted icing.

“Who likes strawberry icing?” Lance scrunched up his face in slight disgust. Strawberry wasn’t bad, but as icing?

“My cousin does,” Shiro countered. He smirked at Lance like he had won, but Lance knew that he had not. Whoever Shiro’s cousin was, they were a real piece of work.

Suddenly, Allura piped up, “Oh, Shiro! I just remembered that we have to pick up the ribbon from Mrs. Leifsdottir’s or else we’ll have nothing to tie the balloons with.” She began stepping back down the aisle, which Shiro copied. “I’m sorry to cut this short, Lance, but we really don’t want to be late. It was lovely running into you! And I’m so sorry about your friend, Shiro and I will be attending the funeral, we’ll see you there!” Allura called, a look of distress on her face at having to leave so suddenly, but Lance understood.

As Lance watched her leave, his heart whined at him and he patted his chest, willing the stupid thing to stop being so sad when she hadn’t even left yet. The town wasn’t going to be the same without Allura. That was just one more loss in Lance’s life, and he was starting to realize that they were all adding up pretty quickly.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

The morning of Romelle’s burial was stiff and stagnant. All throughout the town, a heavy mist had seeped its way in, finding every crack and crevice to spread its melancholy. Everyone in the dreary little town had stopped what they were doing to gather around the graveyard and give a proper farewell to the adventurous girl with the big dreams that never were fulfilled. Even the mountain seemed to be partaking in the funeral, looming over the cemetery and offering its own presence. Lance didn’t like it. He glared at the mountain through the corner of his eyes.

Deadly silence had overtaken the people of Lionsville as they all huddled by the hole in the ground with the upturned pile of black dirt and the nicely decorated coffin. It felt surreal being there, everyone in clothes as dark as the rotten, decaying, regretful energy that permeated the air, reminding Lance that one of the people at the funeral, in his overcoat and boots, with his watered eyes and sunken expression, was a fake. Someone was standing up there with Lance, with the Pollux’s, playing the part of a grieving townsman. That angered Lance the most. He glanced around at everybody.

His mother was at his left. She wore a lovely black dress with a floral design around the neckline. Lance thought the tiny hat that she wore atop her head was a little bit too much, but when she fluffed her hair up and set the hat at an angle, she really did look quite beautiful for a funeral. As she stared the coffin, Lance could see a grief in her eyes that only a parent would ever understand. They shimmered.

Veronica, stood on the other side of their mother, had decided to wear something simpler. She didn’t own much funeral wear, even though she did own some darker clothes. Still, her black overcoat and stockings suited her nicely, especially with the crown braid that she had styled into her hair. Her face was blank and empty. Lance could almost feel the way she disconnected from the funeral altogether, not ready to face the feelings that death stirred up within her.

Closer to the coffin, the Pollux’s were propped up. They didn’t look like real people anymore, but rather, shallow husks of people that needed to be placed by the coffin. Mrs. Pollux’s face was ashen and drained. Staring at her for too long was painful and haunting, her muscles pulled into a desperate expression of agony. Every part of her face looked as though it had been sucked of any meat, leaving behind only sunken skin and frigid bones. Lance couldn’t bear to watch her, he flicked his eyes up to Mr. Pollux.

The father of the victim just stared. He watched the coffin, his eyes unblinking and unmoving. Unshed tears rimmed his eyelids, circling the outside and painting the face of true despondence. There was nothing there. In his face, there was nothing. His entire body gave off an air of pain, like the longer he stood there without moving a muscle, the more seized his muscles became, but at the same time, had the man moved, he would surely fall apart. Any life that was in his eyes before this incident, it would probably never properly return. Lance’s eyes trailed down. In between the two parents, both their hands locked onto a young boy as though he might slip through their grips like their first child had.

The last time that Lance had spoken to Romelle, she had spoken lovingly about her twelve-year-old brother. That was two years ago. Fourteen, then. Bandor was fourteen. He didn’t look fourteen. He looked as though he had been through hell and back, as though he had seen the equivalent of fourteen lifetimes, not years. There was a deep sorrow in those glazed-over eyes, and Lance, if he watched carefully enough, could see the tendrils of his young brain already working to patch this moment in Bandor’s life right up, to repair it with walls of mental illness and sickly mistrust of others.

At the head of the grave, on the other side of the coffin, was Haggar. She was the town gravedigger and eulogist. A strange woman, she was. Her voice sounded the way sandpaper felt and Lance was sure that it did nothing to comfort anybody as she read out the eulogy. Sheriff Zarkon, her husband, was stood near her, watching over everybody at the funeral. Lance could tell he was surveying the crowd for anyone who was even remotely suspicious.

Allura was stood with her father, their hands clasped as they stared on in sadness. Shiro was near them, Adam at his side and Adam’s father not far away, each of them just as dreary as the rest of the town. Pidge and Hunk were stood some ways in front of Lance and his family. Hunk’s arm was around his younger sibling much in the way that Matt’s are was clasped around Pidge. Dr. Holgersson was there, a softened look of remorse on his downturned lips. Shay Balmera was there, Officer Rolo Beezer was there, Deputy Sendak was there. All around, Lance could find the entire town, all mourning the loss of a girl who was taken by someone in the crowd, and there was no way to know who.

There was one person that Lance felt was missing, but what he quickly learned, as he glanced back over his shoulder and over to the fence line behind the church, was that they weren’t actually missing anyone at all. Keith was there, his arms folded over his chest and a troubled expression etched into his face. His eyes were scanning the crowd as well. It reminded Lance of Sheriff Zarkon. Always the protector, always on a mission, that was Keith. He wasn’t wearing any black attire, but of course, no one expected him to. No one noticed.

He wasn’t the only person wearing clothes that didn’t fit the funeral dress code, because the man next to him was just as out of place. Coran Smythe. When Keith stood next to him, his red jacket didn’t seem nearly as out of place as the fallen veteran’s bloodied Civil War uniform. There was a downturn in his bright, orange moustache. He leaned over and said something to Keith, who glanced at him, nodded, and then returned to watching the ceremony from afar.

Coran, Lance had learned from speaking with him, had been in the Civil War and had passed away in 1864 at the hands of an infected gunshot wound to his left thigh. His ghost walked with a limp, which Lance hadn’t thought was weird, but it was interesting that whatever ailment someone died with, it followed them into the afterlife as well. Despite all that Coran had seen and all that he had endured, he was still the most uplifting and excitable man that Lance had ever met, which was a feat, because Lance had always thought that no one was more excitable than himself. When you met those eyes of his, it was nothing but gentle kindness and laughter lines, displaying a man who had lived a good life, no matter how short it was and no matter how it came to a close. His stories sure displayed that as well. If not for the uniform, you wouldn’t even believe that he was dead with all the life that he exuded. It was a shame only Lance and Keith were able to really meet him.

Lance turned back to listen to Haggar’s droning voice. The funeral seemed to go on forever, and yet, Lance never felt the need to cry. He was too worn out from all the things that had happened over the last few days and there was nothing left in him to cry. Instead, Lance blankly watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground and the black dirt was scraped back into the hole, filling up the earth, taking Romelle’s remains with it.

Slowly, everyone broke out of their spells and began to turn back to the little church at the back of the cemetery. Some workers stayed behind to continue burying Romelle’s coffin, but everyone else retreated away from the sorrowful scene. There was snacks and refreshments in the church, something to quell the ache and fill the hole that had gouged out a place in everybody’s souls. Lance followed along with the rest of the town as they herded into the church.

Whoever had been in charge of the food had done an excellent job. Everything was laid out so nicely and neatly. Little sandwiches, each with various types of meat, cheese, and condiments were on one table against the far wall. There was a desserts table as well, which held numerous types of brownies and cakes, tiny pies and coconut treats. There were vegetables and fruits on another table, accompanied by a lovely selection of dips. Drinks, cutlery, and other tableware were on the last table.

Immediately, people began loading their plates and finding seats and moving about the church as if the entire thing that had happened outside of the church had never happened. Lance couldn’t even blame them, it was human nature to look after oneself and attempt to shed the negative things, like a snake shedding its skin. There were young children running around, mothers scolding them, people chatting and laughing, families eating. The atmosphere had completely dropped the pretense of a funeral.

Lance felt sick. He wasn’t sure if it was the sudden shift in tune or just the heavy stench of death that had followed him from the graveyard into the church, but whatever it was, Lance really couldn’t take it. Glancing around, Lance found his mother stood near the other side of the room, speaking with Shay Balmera. Veronica was somewhere, surely, she had to be. Lance couldn’t tell where. He didn’t care. He needed to leave.

Turning, Lance began to make his way back to the door, but as he moved to slip past an older gentleman, he stepped directly into Lance’s path, blocking him. Eyes travelling from the door to the man’s scowling face, Lance blinked, confused. Mr. Iverson, his features just as deeply carved and wrinkled as always, opened his mouth and boomed at Lance, grabbing the attention of everybody in the church nearly instantly, “McClain! What makes you think you’re welcome at this ceremony?! You’ve got some nerve showing your face here!”

Lance balked, blinked again, then stepped back. His eyes flicked around to see if anyone else had noticed just how insane Iverson was being, more than usual, that is. “W–What…?” he stuttered out.

“You don’t think the Pollux’s have enough to worry about, you have to add to their grief?!” Iverson shouted.

Sheriff Zarkon stepped in then, placing a hand on Iverson’s shoulder and narrowing his brick-like eyebrows, although it scarcely made a difference. “Mitch,” he warned.

Iverson didn’t let up, rolling his shoulder to dismiss the sheriff’s hand before stomping up to Lance. “You should be arresting him right now!” he jabbed a finger at Lance, nearly stabbing him in the nose. “We all know he killed that girl, but none of you want to say it!”

Lance began sputtering, scared and baffled, just as the rest of the room was, “I– I didn’t do that, I’m–”

“Don’t make excuses! I saw you hanging out with her and going up the mountain with her! You think we don’t have eyes, huh?! You don’t think it’s pretty damning that she disappeared when you showed up?!” Iverson cut him off, still hollering in the church.

Someone began crying. Lance wasn’t about to risk turning around to see who it was, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was Mrs. Pollux. “What happened to my daughter?!” she yelled, her voice breaking. Lance flinched and turned to meet the horrifically desperate focus of Mrs. Pollux. “Who did this to her?!” Her husband was holding her back, gripping onto her arm wherever he could to keep her from launching at Lance. She wailed, high pitched and haunting as she sank slowly into the floorboards. Her entire face was overcome with an expression that Lance was sure would never leave his brain. He felt tears welling up in his eyes just watching her break down on the church floorboards.

“Lance McClain did!” Iverson announced.

Veronica suddenly appeared out of nowhere, sidling up beside Lance to grab his arm and shove him back behind her. “Lance didn’t do anything!” she shouted. “You don’t know a damn thing!”

Iverson’s face was suddenly swallowed in a flaming red hue and Lance feared one of his veins would pop. Before he could get anymore harsh words out, Sheriff Zarkon grabbed Iverson’s arm and wrenched him back. “I think that’s enough,” he ordered, his words cool, yet threatening. “Don’t make me detain you, Mitch.”

Iverson glared at the police chief before directing his anger back at Lance. “I know the truth, McClain,” he spat.

“Stand down,” Zarkon barked.

That time, Iverson listened, retreating back to whatever hole he had crawled out of. Lance hadn’t even noticed how much he was shaking until he felt Veronica’s solid hand steady his shoulder. Her eyes didn’t leave Iverson though, not trusting him for a second. “You should go get some air,” she muttered over her shoulder.

Lance nodded in agreement. Veronica couldn’t see it. With the intentions to escape the entire mess that had been created by his mere presence, Lance began to shamble towards the door again, hoping that he would be able to escape the place properly for once, especially when he could hardly breathe through all the feelings of death that surrounded him in the church. It always seemed like the living held more pain and agony than the dead did. He stumbled out the door and into the fresh air where he could breathe again, which was saying a lot since the morning air was as sickly and stale as the corpses that littered the mountainside.

Standing there, just outside the church doors, Lance could feel the cool breeze that lightly tossed his hair about. It was a much-needed sanction of peace and Lance let it fill his lungs until he couldn’t expand them any farther. Arms hanging limply at his sides, heavy and aching, Lance kicked his legs outwards and began heading around the corner of the church. He didn’t need to be there any longer, it was just too much. Rather than continue to make everyone uncomfortable, including himself, Lance made the decision then that anywhere else in town would take kinder to him.

His feet squished the grass as he meandered along past the rotting, old church with its cracked windows that were layered in dirt and its unmanicured roofing. As he rounded the corner to the back, Lance discovered that he wasn’t too late in meeting up with Keith and Coran. Seated on the long, thin bar of the fence, Keith faced the dirt path, his head tilted back and his jaw flexing on every word he spoke. Next to him, stood ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind his back, was Coran. He listened intently. Lance smiled at the sight of the two. You knew it was bad when ghosts made better company than your neighbours.

“Hey, Keith, Coran,” Lance greeted as he approached them. He was careful to keep his voice down in case anyone was nearby and listening in. It was hard, but he had to remember that he was the only one who could see the two men.

“Hello, Lance!” Coran smiled, waving briefly.

Keith glanced over his shoulder with brightened eyes. “Lance, hey, you’re out early, how are you doing?” he asked immediately.

Lance gave a half-smile, “I’m not too welcome in there… Iverson was on my ass about everything. Everyone thinks I did it, which is just awesome…” He couldn’t keep the exhaustion out of his words, which were followed closely by a heavy sigh.

Eyebrows furrowing, Keith spun around effortlessly on the fence to properly face Lance, his hair fluttered as he settled, returning to their unmoving, unbothered state, despite the wind. “What do you mean he was on your ass?! He’s always such a bastard, but I didn’t think he’d pull anything at a damn funeral. What the fuck? Who does that?” Keith spat, angry. His eyes sparked.

“Don’t fret, Lance. We know you had nothing to do with any of the strange happenings in these parts. You’re a respectable young man!” Coran offered. His moustached grin accompanied his words.

“Thanks, Coran,” Lance smiled.

“Iverson would do anything to stir things up. He acts like a drill sergeant or something,” Keith continued. “How could he do that?”

Lance scrunched up his face, retracting some of the anger that was thrumming through Keith’s veins. “No one tried to stand up for me except my sister, not even Pidge and Hunk! They really all do think I had something to do with it…”

“It’s not their fault, Lance,” Coran told him. The sympathetic tilt to his eyebrows had both Lance and Keith paying attention to the words he spoke. “They’re just scared. There’s no telling who in this town is responsible for hurting that girl and bamboozling everyone. Everyone here has known one another their entire lives.” Coran had a point there…

Keith slouched down on the fence, his elbows resting on his knees and his head sagging down, as if the fight was taken out of him more every time he dwelled on it all. Lance couldn’t help sharing the sentiment and he felt his own shoulders drop as well. “I’ve been hearing a lot of people say it was a traveller, y’know, someone passing through,” Keith speculated, tilting his head to the side and letting his bangs tumble out of his face.

“That doesn’t add up with the other girls though,” Lance countered. Had Lance even remembered to tell Keith about that? Probably not, especially when he was so distracted with the news about Romelle the previous night.

There was a moment, as Lance spoke to Keith, where the ghost boy’s eyes glazed over entirely and his entire facial expression went slack. “Right,” Keith numbly replied. “The other girls…” His eyebrows furrowed. His face suddenly changed, no longer a look of vacancy, but rather of panicked realization. Keith’s eyes sporadically searched the grass as his brain kicked into gear. “The other girls,” he echoed urgently sitting up. He stared intensely at Lance, his eyes on fire as he worked to form a sentence with all the thoughts rolling around in his head.

“What are you thinking?” Lance asked, his eyes widening as he watched Keith clumsily leap off the fence.

His body wasn’t able to contain all the sudden energy he had. “When did the last girl disappear?” he frantically asked.

“Uh,” Lance thought back to his conversation with Hunk and Pidge, “I don’t know.”

“2014,” Coran chirped. Lance and Keith turned to him. “I remember when it was all anyone was talking about. I have quite the memory, I’ll have you know.” He beamed with pride at himself.

Keith didn’t pause in his questioning though, still just as pressing as he had been a moment ago. “And the girl before that?”

Coran’s eyebrows raised and he shuffled his moustache around in thought. “Hmm, 2012, I believe.”

Eyes as wide as dinner plates, Keith advanced on him. “Before that?!”

“2010…” he answered. Even Coran was starting to worry about Keith’s excitement over the entire thing.

“There was also one in 2008. Do you see what I’m saying?” Arms spread out and eyes tracking between Lance and Coran as he wandered around, Keith waited for their response.

Lance shared a look with Coran, thoroughly confused. “Not… Not really…”

“I have to say, you’ve lost me too, son,” Coran agreed.

“2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and now, Romelle, 2016,” Keith all but shouted. “Every two years; that’s the pattern!”

A shiver ran down Lance’s spine then as his brain started to catch up to Keith’s thought process. “Keith…”

“It’s 2018, and I don’t think an investigation is going to stop this guy,” Keith said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has this altered anyone's theory or enforced it at all? Lemme know, I'm curious!


	10. Humerus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Through the thousands of different versions I cooked up for this fic, this was the one single scene that stayed throughout all of them.
> 
> Disclaimer: This chapter is cringe comedy. It’s built to give you second hand embarrassment, don’t take it too seriously.

“Shiro!”

Shiro, who was trying to stock shelves near the back of his hardware store, nearly leaped out of his skin at the sudden hissing of his name. He spun around, startled and clutching a handful of screwdrivers to his chest. There, pressed up against the back window of the shop that led to the loading dock, was the disgruntled looking man who was glaring directly at Shiro.

“Keith, don’t sneak,” Shiro hissed back.

Keith wasn’t entirely sure why he was whispering when the store was empty with how late it was, but he supposed that he started it. “Open the window!” Keith tapped on the glass with one of his nails, his eyebrows furrowed together.

Shiro sighed and pointed a screwdriver toward the front of the store. “There’s a door you could use.”

“I don’t want anyone to see me, now open up!” Keith tapped some more.

As much as it pained his older cousin when Keith snuck around outside, he did understand Keith’s point of view. So, with a heavy sigh, Shiro placed the screwdrivers onto the shelf next to him and dragged himself over to the window. Keith stepped away, allowing the other man to flick the latch and slide it up. The expression in his eyes was dead.

“Thanks,” Keith nodded. He shoved his head through the opening and pushed upwards with his hands, letting his body tumble forward until he did something akin to a somersault, landing gracelessly on the hardware store’s floor.

He had to admit, he wasn’t that used to using his body. He mostly spent his time in the spirit world since it was easier, but sometimes he had to talk to Shiro, and Shiro couldn’t see ghosts. That was exactly why Keith was risking being seen by sprinting around town in the dead of night. Of course, the door would have been faster, Keith knew that, but it was also around front where all the street lights were, and Keith wasn’t about to risk it more than he already was.

After floundering on the ground for a moment, Keith managed to regain himself enough to stand. Shiro, who was leaning against a shelf with his arms crossed and his eyebrow raised judgementally, had been watching the whole thing occur. Keith sniffed aggressively before marching down the aisle and around the corner.

“So, Keith, not that I’m not thrilled to see you’re still alive, but what brings you to town this time?” Shiro called, a hint of a smirk in his tone from watching Keith fall through a window. He was always amused by that, it seemed.

“It’s about that girl,” Keith replied. “Romelle.” He made his way to the front desk, which wasn’t too far from the aisle that Shiro was stocking. Settling into the spinning chair that was kept behind the counter, Keith propped up his elbows on the solid wood right next to the cash register. One of his nails couldn’t resist scratching its way along a thin crack in the worn-out surface.

Briefly, Shiro’s hands paused their organization, enough to be felt tangibly in the air. They returned to their work shortly after. “Ah, yeah. Her funeral was the other day, did you go?”

Keith nodded, more to himself than to Shiro. “I was there. I had a conversation with Coran and Lance, which is what I need to talk to you about. We were talking about the other girls who went missing over the years, and–”

“They don’t necessarily have anything to do with Romelle, though,” Shiro interrupted.

Eyebrows furrowed, Keith stared out of the corner of his eyes at his cousin. “But what if they do, Shiro? That’s what I’m trying to tell you; each girl went missing in intervals of two years, all the way up to Romelle. That can’t be a coincidence. It’s been two years since Romelle’s disappearance and I just have this feeling that someone else is going to go missing. I don’t know who, but I can feel it in the air. It’s like there’s bad energy hovering over the mountain.”

“You might just spend too much time up there,” Shiro countered. Before Keith could get overly upset about Shiro’s insistence on ignoring the evidence that he had been presented with, he quickly continued, “You are right though, that is odd. Are they really in intervals of two? I didn’t notice that… Even if that’s true though, Keith, there’s no way of knowing for sure that someone else is going to be taken. Who would it even be? There are tons of young girls in town.” Over the top of the shelf, Keith watched Shiro’s hair shift around.

“That’s where I need help, Shiro, we need to warn everyone somehow!” Keith smacked his hand into the desk, his anger flaring at the fact he didn’t have a solid plan.

Shiro’s head poked out from around the shelf, a puzzled and worried shadow over his face, “Warn them of what, Keith? All you’ve told me is that a girl could be taken, but everyone is already hypervigilant after the whole thing with Romelle.”

Shiro had a point, there wasn’t much else that Keith could really warn the people of the town about that would help them protect themselves more than they were already doing. “There has to be something,” Keith complained. “You remember… When I was eight and… I just think…” he began stuttering. He cursed himself for not being able to say the words out loud.

“Hey, no, I know. Okay,” Shiro sighed, cutting Keith off so he didn’t have to finish his thought. He set his materials down to wander over to the front desk. “Calm down, we just need to go back,” he muttered. “What do we know about the other cases?”

“What do you mean?” Keith questioned, eyes narrowing in puzzlement.

Gesturing with his hands, Shiro explained, “What do we know about Romelle before she disappeared?”

“She… was running away with some guy to get married… She was pregnant… She didn’t like living in town,” Keith recounted, his eyes scanning the roof as though the answer was hidden amongst the rafters.

With a quick nod, Shiro’s hands landed on his hips and he smiled. “Good, that’s good.”

“It is…?” There was definitely something that Keith was missing.

“That means he uses a rouse and he chooses girls who we wouldn’t be surprised to learn disappeared. When Romelle disappeared, did anyone think something was off?”

Keith shook his head slowly, catching on, “No, we all just assumed she ran away…”

“That might narrow it down,” Shiro reasoned. “Girls who could disappear without raising suspicion.”

“Huh…” That was actually an extremely good way to figure out who was next when Keith really thought about it. Young girls who wouldn’t be missed, essentially. It was a pretty obvious assessment, but it also shed a lot of light on an aspect of the case that Keith hadn’t even thought to address. He was so busy thinking about what could be next and how to stop it from happening, that stepping back never crossed his worried mind. Keith sighed. “I told Lance about this but…”

“But?”

Another sigh escaped him and he let his body fall forward into the counter until his head made an audible thud. “He’s trying to solve this mystery and he’s going to get hurt!” Keith complained.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing too?” Shiro pointed out.

A scowl on his face, Keith rolled his head to the side and glared at his cousin. “Yes, but the major difference here, Shiro, is that I can’t get hurt if I’m not in my body, whereas Lance can always get hurt.”

“That reminds me,” Shiro shook his finger at Keith, his eyes widening suddenly. “Are you still lying to him about being dead?”

“Maybe…” Keith mumbled, retreating in on himself. At Shiro’s critical eyebrow raise, Keith threw his hands up in frustration. “How do you expect that conversation to go down?! He wasn’t even supposed to know I exist at all!”

Shiro chuckled to himself, clearly mocking Keith for the predicament he was in with Lance. It was hard being in love with a boy who thought you were dead, so Shiro’s laugher was really not appreciated at all. Keith grabbed one of the pens in the little holder beside the register and launched it angrily at Shiro. The older man flinched back as it bounced against his arm and then clattered to the floor.

“Fine! Fine!” Shiro laughed. “I’ll leave you alone, but he’s going to find out eventually.” He began retreating to the backroom of the store where all the supplies that he had yet to stock was awaiting him.

“Not if I can help it!” Keith called as he disappeared through the doorway.

The door jingled. Keith’s entire body tensed and he whipped around to stare owlishly at the front entrance. It was amazing how the world worked, truly. ‘Not if he could help it,’ well, Keith better be ready to help it, because as luck would have it, of all the people in town who would need something from a hardware store at such a late hour, it had to be Lance. The boy was staring at his phone as he entered, still not having noticed Keith’s very real human form sitting in the swirling chair at the front counter. Keith all but choked on his own tongue.

Instantly, Keith threw himself off the seat and onto the floor behind the counter. The chair was launched across the floor, smacking into the filing cabinet by the wall. The clattering noise rang in Keith’s ears along with the raging panic that slammed at his heart.

“Uh, Shiro?” Lance questioned.

His footsteps were coming closer to the desk and Keith just knew he was going to look over. There was no time. Keith did the first thing he could think of and forced himself into the tiny bottom shelf, getting stabbed by various pieces of equipment and making even more noise in the process. As a last resort, he let his spirit seep out of his tangible form. There, on the floor, as a ghost, Keith couldn’t think of a single plan. Lance was fast approaching and all Keith’s brain could manage was a frantic stream of question marks and exclamation points.

With a look of pure panic, Keith leaped to his feet. Lance yelped, hopping backwards with how startled he was. They stared at each other, wide eyed and confused. “Keith?!” Lance squeaked.

“Lance,” Keith greeted. He forced a smile that felt completely unnatural and too wide on his face.

“What are you doing here?!” Lance questioned, hissing at the ghost boy.

Scraping. Keith’s eyes shot downwards. The arm of his empty body was forcing a metal can to slide along the wooden wall of the shelf. Panic gripped Keith even tighter. In a last-ditch effort to drown out the noises his corpse was making, he vaulted himself over the counter and landed perfectly on the other side. “Nothing, just some late night… shopping…” he lied. What the fuck would a ghost be crouching behind a hardware cash register for? If he could sweat, he would be, because there was no reasonable response coming to mind at all.

“Shopping? Keith, it’s the middle of the night,” Lance argued.

Yeah, it was the middle of the night… wasn’t it…? “So, what’s your excuse then?” Keith asked. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back into the wood, trying his best to pretend he wasn’t hiding a dead body. Well, it wasn’t really dead, but still.

Lance’s face was flat as he replied, “Our stove broke and we need a replacement part.”

“Still, it’s late,” Keith decided. More than anything, Keith was just working to not appear panicked while having this totally normal conversation. He wasn’t sure it was working.

Suddenly, much to Keith’s relief as well as his further panic, Shiro rushed out of the backroom with a perplexed and worried affect to his features. “Is everything okay, Kei–?” He paused. Lance and Keith were both staring at him, but the issue was that Shiro could only see one boy. “Key… Okay-key… Everything okay-key out here?” The way his muscles pulled at his cheeks could almost have been considered a smile. Keith shut his eyes and breathed in deeply, willing himself not to enter back into his physical form just to smack Shiro.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine…” Lance said. “Everything out here is… okay-key…”

“You didn’t happen to see…” Shiro began, pausing to scan the store, “…anything…?”

Lance’s eyebrows pinched inwards and he scanned the store as well, bewildered by the question. “Anything…? I don’t… think I did…?” He said it like it was a question. Keith had a question; why him?

“Ah,” Shiro nodded. More words were about to come out of Shiro’s mouth, Keith could just see it. If this conversation wasn’t horrendous enough without Shiro’s help, it was about to get a lot worse.

Before anything more incriminating could be said, Keith did the only thing he could think to do to alert Shiro to the situation. Leaning back, Keith let his elbow get close to the little metal cylinder of pens, pencils, and that one popsicle stick that was always kept near the register. It took energy to manifest himself in the real world when he wasn’t in his body, but if he just used a little bit, it wouldn’t be enough to tire him out. A tightness formed around his elbow as he manifested, almost like his skin was directly piercing an unseen layer between the spirit realm and the physical realm. It didn’t hurt, but it was difficult. His elbow popped through, instantly weighing ten times as much as it usually should have, even by physical form standards. With a swift jab, he knocked the utensil holder right off the counter, sighing in relief as it clattered to the ground and he was able to pull his arm back through to the spirit world.

Lance and Shiro instantly perked up at the clashing of the metal on the ground and the echoing pens as they scattered. “Ah, that darn thing. It’s always doing that,” Shiro complained, as if that was a common occurrence. Keith could see the recognition in his eyes. Shiro knew it was Keith who had done it, but he couldn’t just outright say that. “I’ll get that.” He speed-walked over from the break room and kneeled down to collect the various dropped items.

“Alright,” Lance agreed awkwardly. The second he disappeared behind the counter, Lance was instantly staring at Keith with wide eyes. _Why did you do that?!_ his lips mouthed out.

Shiro’s voice floated over the desk as he made causal conversation, “I think I need to get a new container, this one is a little uneven on the bottom.”

Keith shrugged at Lance, feigning ignorance. “Wasn’t me.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lance called. _I saw you!_ he quickly mouthed. He did a ridiculous hand gesture to go along with it, pointing to his eyes before stabbing his finger in Keith’s direction.

“Get your eyes checked,” Keith teased.

Shiro screamed. It was a fearful and panicked holler, quickly followed by the slamming of his prosthetic arm into the filing cabinet. Keith stiffened and stared straight at Lance, not daring to turn around. He knew exactly what it was.

“Shiro?!” Lance cried, rushing forward to help. “What’s wrong?! Are you okay?!”

Keith intercepted him, stepping directly in the way. Lance blinked, alarmed. He side-stepped Keith, to which Keith responded by side-stepping right back in the way. A look of frustration overcame Lance, but Keith really couldn’t do anything about that except hope Lance wasn’t paying attention to the raw panic that was slackening Keith’s own features.

“Fine!” Shiro hollered. He stood up, nearly tumbling over again. His face was ashen. “I just thought I saw… a spider, but I didn’t and everything is fine. Everything is _okay-key!”_ he laughed at his own joke. No one else laughed.

“What?” blurted Lance.

Keith had to fix this. Lance was going to learn his secret, and while Keith eventually wanted Lance to know, it was definitely not like this. “Lance!” Keith shouted, shocking the boy once more with his sudden yelling. “I have to tell you something extremely urgent! Come with me!” He grabbed Lance’s arm lightly, not using as much energy as he did with the metal can, but using enough that Lance could feel it. He knew Lance could feel it.

Lance’s eyes met his briefly before switching back to Shiro. It was honestly very sweet that Lance was trying to keep up the pretense of not being able to see Keith’s ghost by making minimal eye contact, but Keith didn’t have the time to placate Shiro, he just needed to remove Lance from the situation. “If everything is okay, then I’m just going to go grab what I came here for,” he stated. “If you need any help, just… y’know, call…” Lance swallowed stiffly. Nothing about Lance’s face suggested that he actually wanted to help, he just wanted to escape. Keith did too. Keith bet Shiro also wanted that. No one wanted to be where they were.

“You bet,” Shiro choked out.

Keith really wished that Shiro could see ghosts just to be able to witness the pure indignance on Keith’s face. _“You bet.”_ When in Shiro’s life had he ever used the phrase _“You bet?”_

A couple more seconds of dreadful silence slipped by before some god, somewhere, decided to bestow mercy upon Keith, because Lance spun around and started walking away from the counter. He leisurely aimed for one of the aisles, not really any aisle in particular, but just one where the two of them could have some peace and quiet. Keith followed after him, making sure to lean himself cumbersomely into a rack of spirit levels so that he could see over Lance’s shoulder and into the backroom. It was also so that Lance could very pointedly not see into the backroom.

“So…” Lance whispered as he investigated the levels in great detail, “…what was it you wanted to tell me…?”

And round two of the issues. What was the urgent thing? What was it? Keith didn’t have anything urgent to tell Lance. Oh, yikes, Keith had nothing. It was just him, there, attempting to hide his corpse, making shit up as he went. “Uh…” Keith sputtered out. His eyes sporadically danced around the shelves for anything that his secret could be. There was nothing. “Right…”

“You said it was urgent.”

“It is,” Keith defended rapidly.

“Then… what is it…?” Lance urged. He raised an eyebrow and side-eyed Keith.

Even if Keith had an actual thing that he had to tell Lance, it wouldn’t have mattered, because right as Keith was about to open his mouth to speak, he was interrupted. From over Lance’s shoulder, Keith watched as Shiro slowly shuffled out from around the corner, his feet sliding noiselessly along the floor. As he continued along on his trek to the backroom, it could be seen why Shiro was moving so slowly. Draped over Shiro’s arms and arched inwards on itself was Keith’s empty body. His skin was pale and his features slack as he was lugged across the store, his feet dragging.

“What are you looking at…?” Lance questioned. He was staring at Keith with a confused kind of suspicion.

Keith could see it happening in slow motion as Lance’s head began to turn. He was going to see Keith’s body. He was going to know that Keith was alive. Panic gripped Keith’s heart so quickly that he blurted out the first thing that he could think to say which would halt Lance in his movements, “There’s a boy!”

Sure enough, Lance paused. He looked back at Keith then, more cautious. It didn’t even matter what Keith said or how Lance replied, as long as he didn’t turn around while Shiro struggled to shove a corpse into a backroom.

“A boy?” Lance echoed.

Keith nodded frantically, latching onto the topic and seeing where it took him. “I’m into this guy and I just… had to tell you.” Before Lance could respond, Keith spun around and began wandering down the aisle. “That was the urgent thing,” he called. There was a hope in the back of his mind that if he drew in Lance’s attention and then hurried somewhere near the other end of the store, then maybe Lance would follow along like a fish on a hook.

It worked. Keith was ready to cry from how well it worked. Lance sauntered down the aisle after Keith. “You like a guy?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Keith answered. “That’s what I said.”

“I thought…” Features scrunching up in confusion, Lance glanced to the side, then back at Keith. “I thought you were straight,” he whispered.

It was Keith’s turn to be perplexed. “Why?”

“I don’t know, I just did,” Lance awkwardly muttered. He had the decency to look embarrassed after assuming something like that about Keith.

“Well, I’m not.”

Lance nodded. “So, this boy?”

“Yes?” Keith inspected the items on the shelf next to him as he slowly led Lance away from the scene of the crime. All the while, Keith did his best to look uninterested in the topic, which was hard when the boy in question was right there.

“What’s he, uh–? I mean… is he–? Do you two…?” Lance struggled to form a single coherent thought from his mouth and Keith wasn’t exactly decided on whether or not he liked it.

Keith rolled his eyes. “What are you trying to ask, Lance?”

Lance, a light blush dusting his face as he continued to question Keith, looked even more embarrassed somehow. Keith wasn’t sure what he was even embarrassed about, but maybe the entire conversation topic was just strange for Lance. Perhaps it was because Keith sprung it onto Lance without any lead up, which couldn’t be blamed upon Keith since he had to come up with something quickly before his biggest secret was given away via his cousin lugging his corpse through the store. It could even have been a result of the fact that Lance thought Keith was dead and was embarrassed of having to listen to a dead boy lust after an alive boy.

“Who is it?” Lance asked finally.

Keith glanced back over his shoulder at Lance. Their eyes met, and for a moment, Keith could almost feel something unsaid pass between the gaze they shared. “Doesn’t matter,” he answered. There was a lazy lilt to the way he said it, his smile crooked on his face and his eyes lidded. Everything about the way he answered was casual, but underneath his buzzing skin and his thrumming veins, deep within his jittery chest, Keith could feel as his heart painfully clenched in time to the billion questions that popped into his head.

Lance stared at Keith for a long moment. There was something in Lance’s eyes that made Keith feel exposed, as if Lance knew who the boy was. Lance opened his mouth. Keith opened his mouth. They both went to speak. A clattering interrupted, cutting through the meaningful silence.

“Ah! Keith!” Shiro shouted from the backroom. More clattering.

Lance’s eyes widened. Fear punched Keith directly in the face and knocked him out cold. “Keith?” Lance repeated. The amount of raw disconnected confusion that radiated from Lance’s eyes was enough to rip out Keith’s actual lungs right then and there.

Before Keith had a chance to even pretend like Shiro’s panicked yelp was just the wind, Lance was already rushing down the aisle and bolting straight to the room where Keith knew his dead body was waiting. Keith nearly swallowed his entire throat, if that was even possible. He sprinted after Lance at top speed, slipping on the floor and sliding right into a shelf of hammers. There was nothing better about being a ghost than not having to worry about injuries. The bad part, though, was that he couldn’t teleport.

Lance slammed his hands into the doorframe of the backroom and peered in, his eyes wide and searching for the source of the yelling. Keith rushed over, his hair fluttering back as he hurried along. “Shiro, what’s wrong? Keith who?” Lance frantically called. He stepped purposely over the threshold right as Keith came up behind him, also entering the room at Lance’s side.

“Keith?!” Shiro repeated, completely alarmed and petrified by the slip up. Keith was in the same state of horror. “Yes! Keith… Urban. Keith Urban! I dropped my Keith Urban album down the side of my filing cabinet! Can you believe that?!” The silver finger of his metallic arm pointed accusingly at his filing cabinet. “I was just about to… to play it…”

Everyone stood in silence. Keith was ready to die for real. Shiro didn’t own a Keith Urban album. Shiro didn’t even like that genre of music. Lance was skeptical too, especially with the way that Shiro was sweating and patting his thigh with his hands as if he didn’t have anything better to do with them.

“You like country music…?” Lance asked.

“Yes, I do,” Shiro responded. He had the decency to sound sincere instead of cringing his way through the sentence.

That was when it happened. Keith turned around to leave the room and go back to planning a way to leave the store with his body before Lance noticed anything was off. Mistake number one. As Keith faced the doorway again, he choked. On the other side of the little metal door, just barely noticeable, was Keith’s arm. Like, his physical arm. Keith’s body was hung up on the hook of the backroom door by the back of his jacket. The door couldn’t even go all the way to the wall because Keith’s fat head was lolled forward, blocking the way. His jacket, as red as it was, stuck out like a sore thumb.

If there was a way for Keith’s blood to leave his face when he was in his ghost form, it would have happened by now. “Maybe you should just leave the poor, old guy alone. He’s clearly very distraught,” Keith suggested, patting Lance’s shoulder and purposely standing right in the way of the obvious husk hanging from the door.

“That’s, uh… unfortunate, Shiro, I’m sorry. Can I buy what I came here for now?” he pointed to the register.

Shiro nodded. He was staring past Lance. Keith knew what he was staring at. He hoped Lance didn’t. “Yeah, of course. Let’s get you rung up then,” Shiro laughed. There as no humour in his chuckle.

The two of them made their way out of the backroom and to the front counter so Lance could pay for whatever he bought. Keith wasn’t even sure if he had picked anything at all. It didn’t matter.

The moment they disappeared, Keith took his opportunity. Rather than waste his time any longer, Keith let himself slip back into his body. It was jarring, just like it always was. He swallowed a cough down into his body and waited for his head to stop spinning. Every limb was numb and tingly, causing him to scrunch up his face in discomfort until his blood was able to flow properly once more. His head hurt. That was what happened when he was left in weird positions and it was always why he made sure to kindly put his body on the couch, all wrapped up before he left it for the day. Not that it was that much of a big deal. Soon enough, Keith was ready to make his escape.

Well, he would have been if he wasn’t hanging from the back of a door. Keith huffed. Another challenge. With all the momentum that he could muster, Keith forced his body upwards. Nothing. He was still hooked. With his hands, Keith attempted to pull his jacket out, but that didn’t work either. His body was too heavy for him to get unstuck. He couldn’t just _lift himself._ That would be ridiculous. Keith stopped for a moment. He growled in the back of his throat, angry. Then, all at once, Keith began thrashing. Hands threw themselves out and about, legs kicked, arms waved wildly, head wiggled. Nothing. He was just a guy, hanging from a door, stuck and frazzled.

An idea struck him. A smile spread along Keith’s face as he thought through his brilliant plan. His jacket, of course! Keith reached over to pull at his left sleeve, yanking his arm back through the fabric and out of the front. Half his body was being supported by the jacket while the other half wasn’t. His feet fell, his torso slipped, one boot hit the floor and his shoulder smacked into the metal door. All his weight went into the door, forcing it to swing on its hinges. Keith’s left foot kicked itself out and caught on the edge of a shelf that was just barely within his reached, halting the door only inches from slamming shut and alerting Lance to his presence. Keith nearly cried in relief.

There he was, one foot hooked on a shelf, one arm stuck in a red jacket still on a hook. His entire body was extended. He wondered how his jacket hadn’t ripped. Slowly, Keith worked at pulling himself closer to the wall by pulling on the shelf with his foot. Yeah, he just about yanked the entire shelf down, causing him to frantically shush the thing, as if that would make a difference.

By the mercy of God, Keith eventually pulled himself back into a position where he could wriggle his arm out of the jacket. With nothing to support his upper body and his foot caught on a shelf, Keith toppled forward, his hands pushing into the ground until he was in a pseudo-downward dog situation. Carefully, Keith untangled himself from the floor and grabbed his jacket off the peg, all the while glaring at it.

He was glad that he had no reason to mention this ever again to anyone. The last thing Keith needed was to have anyone know about the fight he lost with a door. Keith mimed kicking and punching the door out of anger before huffing at it and scurrying out of the backroom.

Lance and Shiro could be heard at the front, chatting with each other, Shiro giving Lance advice on repairing or upgrading appliances. Everything was normal. Before something else could be ruined, Keith snuck to the back of the shop and dived back out the window that he had originally come in through, freed by the darkness of the night once more.

This was exactly why Keith never came into town with his physical form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'know, I was talking to my therapist the other day and she told me that it's very good that I have this page and the fact that I interact and talk about myself here is good, even though I don't say much about myself. So, in the interest of a better mental health and for those of you who are curious, here's some random stuff about me:  
> \- I'm learning German  
> \- I own a Rubik's cube collection  
> \- I only watch crime shows and doctor shows  
> \- My favourite anime is Durarara  
> \- I love the colour red so much I would make every item in my house red if I could  
> \- I can move my eyes independently from one another  
> \- The best cookie flavour is oatmeal raisin, don't @ me  
> \- My favourite movie is Back to the Future and I was going to write a Klance AU for it  
> \- I would kill a man for a good ham.  
> \- I'm not religious  
> \- I've never broken a bone or been stung by a bee  
> \- I have two cats  
> Cool, there we are! You can tell me about yourself if you want too, but yeah, that's some me stuff.


	11. Orbital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter was a bit of a bust, I have to say. A swing and a miss on my part. So, back to our regularly scheduled creepy mystery Klance content. I think you'll find this chapter fairly frustrating. :) If I had to pick a favourite chapter in this thing, I think it would be this one. Enjoy!

Due to the nature of him being dead, Keith never truly felt comfortable entering other peoples’ houses in his ghost form. Somehow, it was an invasion of privacy. Keith reasoned that if he was actually dead and actually a ghost, then entering other houses would be strange but not completely off the table. After all, it wouldn’t matter if he was dead. Yet, as someone who was very much alive, he couldn’t bring himself to impede upon other spaces belonging to other people. He couldn’t even do it with Lance, who knew he was there. Perhaps that also came back to the fact he wasn’t entirely dead and it was somehow like he was lying to Lance. Whatever the case, Keith would allow himself no more than a pair of dangling legs into Lance’s bedroom as he perched himself on the windowsill and watched Lance ready himself.

Ties really weren’t Lance’s thing and they never had been. It was an obvious thing too, since he was currently stood in front of his mirror with a mess of fabric fumbled around his neck. One might say it was tied, but Keith wouldn’t.

“This is embarrassing to watch,” Keith commented, his chin in his hand and his body slouched over.

Lance stared at him in the mirror with an unimpressed expression. “Your face is embarrassing to watch,” he retorted, mumbling a little bit because he very clearly didn’t have a real argument to shoot back at Keith.

“How do you not know how to tie a tie?” Keith questioned, tilting his head to the side and smirking.

“I can tie a tie just fine,” Lance huffed. He tugged at the tie a little more and played around with it, getting exactly nowhere.

Keith snorted and shifted back to lean against the edge of the window. “Prove it,” he challenged with a head nod.

Lance lifted his head up, nose and all, defying everything that Keith was saying about his inability to tie a tie. With all the confidence in his body that he could muster, Lance flipped his tie around and folded this part there and that section that way. Once he was done, he removed his hands from the fabric around his neck and inspected his work. It looked terrible, bulging and messy like a bundled-up sock hung around his neck. Keith snorted as Lance deflated.

“Wow,” Keith commented, “you sure proved me wrong.” His arms were crossed over his chest and they shook as he laughed.

“Like you can do better?” Lance snapped, although not with any real anger, but more with the conviction of someone who believed they were both in the same boat.

Keith smiled and shifted forward in his windowsill seat. He gestured with his hand, guiding Lance closer. Lance stared at him skeptically but wandered towards the ghost boy anyway. There was hesitance in his steps as though he wasn’t sure where to stand or if he even wanted to stand so close and trust Keith with his tie.

Perhaps it was indulgent, but Keith needed access to Lance’s tie, so he spread his legs along the window, his ghost feet touching the wall. Keith reached out, manifesting his hand enough to grab the fabric around Lance’s neck. It hurt a little bit, his hand pulling and pushing, piercing the veil between the worlds that kept them both apart. Lance’s eyes widened slightly as Keith grabbed the tie and tugged him forward. Whether that was because he wasn’t expecting Keith to manifest or because the proximity that diminished between them came as a shock, Keith wasn’t sure, but not for the first time, Keith was glad he couldn’t blush in his spirit form.

Remaining as professional as he could, Keith undid the knot that Lance had made in his latest attempt, smoothing it out gently in his hands to dismiss any wrinkles that were created. The way his hands were so steady was a testament to Keith’s ability to keep his head in the midst of jarring situations, because he could feel the way that Lance’s eye tracked every part of him; his hands, his legs, his face. It was overwhelming, but Keith wouldn’t let it show.

And it was self indulgent. Even though Keith already knew that, he still couldn’t help but pull Lance close. There was something about the fact that Lance was going to a party for graduation, he was growing and moving up in life as a person, he was finding himself and maturing in ways that Keith was so proud of. Over the course of two years, Lance hadn’t lost any part of the things that made him unique and incredible, he just aged with them, built them up stronger and more defined, and Keith was more than happy to stand alongside Lance and watch it all happen. However, with that came the fear that Keith held deep within his soul; Lance was going to get hurt if he continued to look into the murders.

That was why Keith did this. That was why Keith let himself pull Lance as close as he could get away with. That was why Keith protected Lance so fiercely. And that was why Keith quickly broke the silence that was forming between them before his heart did something crazy like convince him that he would never see Lance again and to never let him leave.

“I’m proud of you,” Keith said simply.

From where he was standing and observing, Lance shifted slightly. Keith could see as Lance’s fists clenched at his sides before releasing. He wasn’t sure what that meant or if it was a good thing. “Proud of me for what?” Lance laughed, albeit awkwardly.

Keith shrugged one shoulder, still doing his best to focus on the tie and not let his real nerves show. “Graduating. You’ve worked hard for this,” he nonchalantly told Lance. As discretely as he was able, Keith swallowed the lump in his throat.

Lance’s head ducked, leaving Keith with no choice but to remove his eyes from the tie and watch Lance’s face properly for once. “Thank you,” Lance answered in a whisper. “I’m glad you’re here with me…”

Keith’s hands stuttered and he glanced away again. “I never went to my graduation,” he commented. It was an obvious attempt to escape the things that he was feeling when Lance spoke like that.

Lance made a small noise of interest. “You had a graduation?” he asked.

Keith’s eyes flicked up to him with a glare ready on his face. “Why do you sound surprised?” he growled. His hands nimbly flipped one piece of another of the tie fabric, building the base of the knot. He could feel the energy that it took out of him draining rapidly, but he didn’t stutter in his movements.

“No, I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Lance quickly backtracked. He stepped closer. Keith was acutely aware of the way that his knee hit Lance’s waist when the boy moved. His brain was cursing at him for noticing. “I just… I didn’t know that about you,” he covered.

Keith nodded, the glare still present on his face as he continued with the tie. Lance was very deliberately trying to avoid saying anything related to how Keith was a ghost, and while that was kind of him, it made Keith’s heart ache a little bit more. As if he wasn’t aware, as if Keith could ever be unaware of the distance between him and Lance. There was so little room between them that Keith could feel Lance breathing on his face, but the distance that was really there was astronomical.

Throwing Lance a bone wasn’t the worst idea, Keith decided. “I didn’t actually graduate properly, but I was going to. I never made it to my graduation,” Keith explained.

“Why didn’t you?” Lance asked.

“There was a lot going on in my life then.” Keith swallowed thickly. “Everything with my father and just life in general, I guess. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just… It wasn’t that important to me. It never has been.” Keith tugged on the tie a little bit more. It was more or less tied, but he was just preening it, shifting it around and adjusting the look of it. There was no need for that. Out of the need for stability and desire to be close to Lance just a little longer, Keith didn’t pull away or tell Lance he was done with it.

Lance either wasn’t aware his tie was tied or he felt the same energy holding them together that Keith felt, because he took another step closer. It was more of a shuffle really, but it jerked Keith’s head up in response. Lance was more or less being encased by Keith’s legs. “You don’t think graduation is important? Even after all that work in school?” he questioned.

Sighing, Keith tilted his head to the side languidly. “That was just it; it wasn’t that graduation wasn’t important to me, it was everything. School never meant anything to me. Everyone’s always told me that I’ll never have a stable job if I don’t go to school and get a degree, but I can’t feel any pride in the work I do. It means nothing for what I want to do with my life.”

A sadness washed over Lance’s eyes. Keith ignored it. He didn’t want it. He yanked particularly hard on Lance’s tie. He jerked forward a bit and caught himself on the window frame before he could tumble into Keith. “What do you want to do with your life, Keith?” Lance asked after regaining himself. With his body bent forward slightly, he was forced to look up through his bangs at Keith.

For a moment, there was silence. Keith had a billion answers right off the top of his head, right on the tip of his tongue. Every answer that his tired mind had ever concocted when he lay awake at night asking himself that same question, every profound reason for living that he had ever built after seeing the death around him and within himself, every use his mind and body could provide the world with, and Keith still never was able to say for certain what it was that he wanted.

“I want…” he muttered into the air between them, “to find answers…” Lance’s eyebrows furrowed. “I want to feel everything until it becomes overwhelming. I want to help people.”

“You’ve helped me,” Lance said. The way his eyes widened in surprise and his mouth opened on unformed words told Keith that he hadn’t meant to say that.

A smile broke out on Keith’s face against his will. He ducked his face down briefly before resurfacing to meet Lance’s blue eyes, so full of emotion and meaning. “Thanks,” he huffed a laugh. “I’m glad I’ve made some difference.” His voice trailed off.

“Keith, you really have helped me. I don’t think I could have made it this far without you,” Lance affirmed. The look of confusion that had come over his face at the first outburst was no longer there. He was speaking from his heart, and even if there was an embarrassed flush across his tanned cheeks, his words were still sincere and genuine.

“You were doing just fine before you knew me,” Keith pointed out. He wasn’t sure how to react to this hyper serious Lance. Fingers still wrapped tightly around Lance’s tie, energy slipping from his body with every passing second, Keith couldn’t bring himself to exit the situation or deescalate it.

Lance shook his head, somehow maneuvering himself ever closer in the process. “That’s not the point though. I’ve never said it before, Keith, but I know I can trust you with anything and that you’ll be there for me, because I can see how much care you hold for the world. I can see your heart.” Was it sappy? Yes. Was it ridiculous to hear those movie-esque words said out loud by the boy he loved? Absolutely. Did Keith accept every word, knowing full well that they were made of the truth? Completely.

Lance’s eyes were burrowing into Keith and filling him with their truth and honesty. “What, no teasing comment?” Keith chuckled.

He was feeling like a cornered animal, but in the best way possible. Lance was so close, their noses nearly touching. All Keith would have to do would be manifest his lips and lean forward a little further. With every powerful throb Keith’s chest gave, it was a wonder it hadn’t already upended his balance and launched himself at Lance. Keith didn’t even have a heartbeat, it was just the force of his desires propelling him and manufacturing a makeshift heartbeat. Eyes roaming Lance and fingers twirling the fabric, Keith attempted to create a single coherent thought in his mind, but all that was coming up was a series of whines and grunts.

Keith felt like a creature, like a beast that wasn’t tamed. He felt sexy and confident, like if he leaned over and pecked Lance, he would have enough fortitude within himself to pull away and coyly promise more after the dance if Lance was lucky, even going so far as to entertain the idea that Lance would want more. He felt scared and vulnerable, as if Lance really could see his heart, as if he could see all the thoughts and feelings that Keith’s metaphorical heart held about Lance himself. He felt free. These were the emotions that overwhelmed Keith; the ones of extreme passion and uncertainty and understanding all at once. This was what Keith lived for. He wanted more.

They were inches apart. “Stop me if I’m wrong,” Lance muttered, his tongue tripping on the words in anticipation. Keith wasn’t sure what those words meant, but somehow, he knew exactly what was going to happen. Lance pressed forward, his lips parting and his eyes lidding. Keith let it happen, lips eagerly awaiting Lance. It was two years in the making, this relationship, this build up, this kiss, this emotional need to be close to the other. As Keith tugged on Lance’s tie and as Lance swooped forward, propped up by the wall, Keith couldn’t remember why they had waited so long in the first place.

Then it happened. Not the kiss, no, not what Keith had been wanting so furiously and ferociously since the moment he had met Lance, not that. The door opened behind them. Veronica peered her head into the room, spotting her brother at the window. “Hey, what’re you doing? We’ve been waiting forever! We’re going to miss the ceremony if you don’t hurry your ass up,” she complained, rolling her eyes.

What she didn’t see, though, was the boy seated on the windowsill with his legs halfway pulling Lance closer, his head tilted and his lips parted as he awaited the experience that never came. Lance and Keith were suspended in time, each staring intensely into the other’s eyes and wondering if they stayed there long enough, would Veronica go away and let them finish? That was why they had waited so long. Keith was noncorporeal. And he still hadn’t told Lance about that. Fuck.

Lance pulled away reluctantly, his head bypassing Keith’s face entirely in favour of greeting his sister. “Sorry, just getting some air!” he laughed. “I’m nervous. This is the big day, after all.”

“Well, you can get fresh air in the car too, y’know. Stop wasting time, you look fine,” she assured, somewhat. It wasn’t the most affirming way she could have said it, but she was clearly getting exhausted already. She probably was. She got tired easily.

Lance nodded stiffly. He glanced back at the window. “Right,” he muttered. His eyes stuck with Keith’s, almost too long.

There was too much there and Keith couldn’t read the emotions properly, especially not when his own metaphorical heart was cracking and snapping itself in two. He had to leave. Before Lance could make some sort of decision such as to walk out of there or to go run over to Keith and kiss him like was supposed to happen, Keith let his ghost form fall backwards out the window like a scuba diver dropping off the boat. As his spirit fell, he let himself dissipate from existence, committing fully to the spirit realm. Even Lance couldn’t see him then. Hopefully, Lance had a good rest of his graduation, because Keith’s night was sufficiently ruined. Keith desperately needed to return to his body.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

The party was beautiful. Long streamers of various enchanting colours were strung up from the ceiling, draping over the crowd and obscuring the rafters. They reached from one end of the room all the way to the other. Golden yellow paper next to fiery reds, and encapsulating blues across from calming greens. The entire ceiling itself was covered in one giant piece of solid black fabric that had been painted over with white paint to appear like stars in the endless expanse of space. Everywhere that one looked, they were met with some sort of romanticized constellation or planet theme. It was gorgeous, truly. The fake moons and nebulas that had been crafted from wood and plastic and other materials by the members of the town for the big night, they were all perfect fits. Everything glowed, even the flowers in the middle of the tables at one end of the giant hall. It was difficult not to get lost in the majesty of it all and how magical it felt to walk amongst the décor. It was enough to take someone’s breath away.

And Lance didn’t notice any of it.

Space was his favourite, and of all the themes that had been deliberated on, Lance was more than thrilled when it was announced that space was the chosen theme. Lance had even put his own work into helping with the streamers and the planning. This was Lance’s big night, his graduation, his chance to shine and be showered with praise as he moved on from his time in school to the world of exciting opportunities and careers.

And Lance didn’t care. He wasn’t feeling it. No matter where Lance looked, it just wasn’t nearly as magical as it should have been. Everyone else was having a good time.

From his perch at the drink stand, Lance could see Pidge doing some sort of funky little jive next to her brother, Matt, who was doing an equally ridiculous trot of some sort. It seemed like they were trying to out-dance the other, but in the worst way. The smiles on their faces and laughing coming from them was enough to indicate that they were having a good time. It made Lance wonder what Keith’s ridiculous dancing would look like and if it was any different from his real dancing.

Hunk was across the dance floor, twirling a gal named Shay around. The two of them looked lovely, like they were made to be out there, taking over the entire night with their fluid movements, their graceful love, and their adoring smiles. Shay laughed as Hunk guided her back into their quick step. Her large hoop earrings shook with the speed of her dance but she kicked her legs out with glee each time. Hunk, in his tailored suit, was blushing and chuckling as well, glancing down at his feet every now and again to make sure he got the steps right. It made Lance daydream about jiving with Keith, how he’d look as he tossed his limbs out there in time to the music and a smile lighting up his face.

Near the centre of the room, Shiro and Adam were fumbling their way through some sort of dance. It wasn’t the quirky mess that Pidge and Matt’s dance was, but it also wasn’t the competent show that Hunk and Shay had going on either. It was somewhere in between. Adam tripped over his own feet, stepping on Shiro’s. They whispered to each other. Every so often, Shiro would duck his head and laugh or Adam would raise his eyebrows and burst out a sudden guffaw. It made Lance wish he could watch Keith throw his head back with laughter as Lance whispered ridiculous things into his ear and rocked him around the dance floor.

Lance wasn’t sure where Allura had disappeared to, but he knew he didn’t really want to know. Whatever she was doing, it would only remind him of Keith or make him think about Keith in some way. Everything was doing that. Even just standing beside the punch bowl and pouring ladle after ladle of the punch into his plastic cup to chug down had him wondering if Keith was the type to enjoy fruity drinks. Lance was a mess of emotions and thoughts. Although, that wasn’t without good reason. In fact, Lance felt that his thoughts were completely justified considering he almost kissed Keith.

He almost kissed him. He was right there; their mouths were centimeters apart. That had happened. Lance was somewhat mad at Veronica for walking in and interrupting what Lance had been waiting on for years, but some part of him was also relieved. Well, it wasn’t relief, it was more like pained resignation. He couldn’t kiss Keith, that wasn’t something that was allowed, nor would it ever be allowed. Keith wasn’t alive, he wasn’t tangible, he wasn’t an option. What would even have happened had Lance actually reached Keith’s lips? Would he have phased through? Would Keith have been manifested in preparation? Lance wasn’t sure how ghost physics even worked, but he knew it made him want to cry.

Why did he have to fall in love with a dead boy?

Why did that dead boy have to sit there?

That was another question that had been swirling around in Lance’s mind. Keith hadn’t pulled away. Lance had given him a warning, he had given him the option to stop Lance, and they were close enough that Keith had to have known what was happening. There was no way that Keith could be that close to Lance, fiddling with the tie around his neck, and just not noticed the way that Lance’s cheeks heated up and his palms sweated and his throat bobbed and his eyes fixed onto Keith’s gorgeous face, because how could they not, he was so fucking beautiful.

Lance was getting carried away again.

The point was that Keith didn’t move. If anything, Lance could have sworn that Keith was gripping his tie stronger, pulling him closer, circling his legs farther, drawing Lance in. Keith had wanted to kiss Lance just as much as Lance wanted to kiss Keith.

Lance’s lithe fingers entwined themselves within his blue tie unconsciously as he recalled the moment. It was all so vivid in his mind’s eye. Keith, with his intense eyes locked onto Lance’s every move. It always seemed like those eyes were focused somewhere else, maybe nowhere tangible, but rather on the future. Lance felt paralyzed and energized whenever those violet eyes looked his way, it was magnetizing. And when Lance had blurted out how Keith had helped him, he was so weak to the power that Keith had over him that he hadn’t even felt the words leave his lips, but he meant them wholeheartedly.

It was in that moment that Lance truly understood what Keith meant with the desire to let himself be overwhelmed by everything, because when Keith tugged on Lance and didn’t shove him away, Lance felt it. That feeling of being wanted by the boy he wanted right back, that was the type of concentrated emotion that life was built upon.

Life. Keith didn’t have life. Keith’s life had been snatched away from him. No wonder he wanted so desperately to feel something, anything.

Lance closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. This party really wasn’t his scene right at that moment, and no matter how hard he attempted to insert himself into the festivities, he always found himself shutting down and draining of all energy as everything around him returned, the weight of it bearing down on him. Keith wouldn’t ever achieve his dreams the way he wanted. Romelle never truly left the town like she had always strived for. Life was so fragile and Lance could see that. Those overwhelming emotions were returning again, driving their way up Lance’s throat and stabbing through his chest from the inside out. He needed to get fresh air and to be anywhere but in that sticky hall of loud music and bright colours. Lance needed a break from it all.

Slamming down his cup of punch, causing it to slosh around and nearly spill over the side, Lance disregarded the entire table. He gave a last glance at everyone in the room again, all the happy people enjoying their joyful night. It was a bit too much right then. Sure, Lance wasn’t going to have another graduation and he should have stayed, but he just really couldn’t fathom being in there for any longer.

Lance pushed his way through the throngs of people, bobbing and weaving his way to the front entrance. There were so many decorations that Lance almost couldn’t recognize the building, but he managed to figure out one end from the other. The doors were deigned to look like rocket ships, and that would have been so cool to any other version of Lance, but not the desperately hurting one that was shoving through the doors right then. Random people who were standing around by the doors watched him leave, worried expressions on their faces. Lance didn’t even bother to offer them an explanation, he just continued on.

Once outside, Lance’s lungs thanked him graciously for the bouts of fresh air that they greedily took in. Lance’s eyes fell closed and his shoulders sagged in relief. He couldn’t help how his head tilted backwards and exposed his overheated face to the sky. Vaguely, he wondered if he had a cold and that was why everything was so cold and hot at the same time. His legs jerked forward, carrying him along the trail. Each step felt stiff, his knee barely doing any work. Lance’s lungs filled more and more with the freedom that the darkened night offered, light draping over him from the building at his back.

There were so many thoughts jammed inside Lance’s overwhelmed brain that he could hardly focus on where he was or where he was going, but his dutiful legs carried him along anyway, all the way back home. Lance let his arms dangle at his sides, he let them reach into the air until his shoulders popped, he let them flow aimlessly at his sides like he could fly if he caught the right draft. His head lolled to the side, each side.

It was freezing. Lance’s suit, as lovely as it was and as stunning as he looked, especially with his tie, still couldn’t offer a hint of warmth in the chilly night. Still, Lance made zero attempt to save himself from the cold. It was all welcome, anything was welcome when all Lance’s thoughts could manage was a frustrated, panicked yelling. What was supposed to feel like the rest of his life opening up, suddenly felt like a pile of sand that was slipping through his fingers, free of control, exposed to the will of the world. Lance was so hopelessly thrown to the wind and its chance. It was enough to make him yell.

So, he did. Lance leisurely wandered the path towards home, never speeding up or slowing down for anything, and he shouted. Just a stream of noise until his lungs ran out of mileage once more. The mountain loomed over him at his left, looking even larger in the night than in the day, and Lance just waved his arms through the air and yelled.

His feet halted and his arms fell to his sides. He turned to the mountain, glaring at it. “Fuck you!” Lance suddenly shouted, his voice cracking. He threw his hands up. One of his legs kicked out at the dust as if he could scuff the mountain’s shoes if he kicked hard enough or something. Lance wasn’t sure, he just needed to get out the ultimate helplessness that plagued him when he looked back on everything around him. He just fucking wanted everything to be okay, and it couldn’t be. He wanted to kiss the boy he loved and he couldn’t even do that. Even that was out of his reach. “What else can you take from me?!” he hollered, punching at the air like that would change a thing.

“La– ance!”

Lance just about screamed, leaping out of his skin at the sudden noise. It sounded like a record that had skipped, not a real human voice. Lance whirled around, searching for the source. It sounded like it had come from up the path, closer to the mountain and his house, but there was no one there. A shiver ran up his spine.

“Hello?” Lance called, confused. He shrunk in on himself, suddenly realizing just how vulnerable he really was, outside, in the dark, alone, while everyone in town was at the dance.

“Lance!” a high-pitched and distant female voice screamed.

Before Lance could say anything else, up the road, there was a glitch. It was as if time and space itself was snapping in that one space. A girl stood there. She phased out. Her legs and half of her torso was visible. She disappeared again. As if no one part of her could be fully within the space she occupied all at once. Her hands appeared, reaching out to him. Half of her face, a panicked shout. “La–” Gone.

And like a ton of bricks, Lance’s entire body went cold. That face, that voice, that bludgeoning wound on the top of her head, those clothes. Lance was watching a spirit attempting to manifest itself properly, something that could be very difficult for the dead to do if they didn’t know they were dead or they hadn’t been dead for long. Lance’s throat closed in on itself as he watched the ghost girl frantically try to communicate with him.

“Romelle,” he choked out. His body felt suddenly so weak and he pushed himself down the trail towards her. Tears welled up in his eyes. “Romelle, I can hear you!” he called out.

She halfway manifested, nearly entirely visible, but not quite. Lance flinched away from the crusted blood that drenched her outfit. “He’s go–” she cut off as she disappeared.

Lance’s breathing picked up. “He’s, what? What is it? Romelle, who did this to you?” he cried, rushing forward to meet her on the trail. There was silence. The wind brushed past Lance’s face and ruffled his hair. He swallowed. The night pricked at his skin. He listened to the wind, desperately searching for her voice. “Romelle?!” he shouted again. Every beat of his heart fractured his ribcage and the adrenaline that flooded his system made his limbs twitch with panic.

Nails dug into his arms, nearly piercing his skin, gripping so hard that Lance froze. Her face was right there, right in front of his face. She was bloodied and glitching out. The expression on her face was so contorted and fraught, pressed right into Lance’s personal space. The way her eyes widened and her mouth shook as she spoke, Lance’s bones were chilled. _“Help”_ she hissed, low and commanding. Her nails dug into his skin farther. The blood on her face shimmered and dripped off her chin. Then she was gone.

Lance stood there, rattled to the core. “Romelle?” he called out again. She didn’t answer, she didn’t manifest, she didn’t give any sign that she was even there. Lance’s body was shaking and he didn’t know what to do with his arms. The stricken look, permanently etched in his face, was accompanied by the instinctive need to bring his arms up to his face and inspect the claw marks that Romelle had left in his skin. “Romelle?!” he shrieked again.

Lance could have stood there on the dirt path all night, but she never would appear again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While you're in the comments dropping your theories and opinions on stuff (which, if you weren't going to, you should<3) feel free to also add in a song rec! My commute to school is insanely long, it's an hour and a half, and I need songs to occupy my time but I've just been listening to the same collection of songs on youtube constantly and I'm lookin' for a new sound. Here, I'll leave some songs for you lovely readers if you're interested;  
> \- Adore by Amy Shark  
> \- Who I'm Singin' To by Bug Hunter  
> \- Adelaide by Meg Myers  
> \- Mandy Goes to Med School by The Dresden Dolls  
> \- Nobody Likes the Opening Band by I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME


	12. Thoracic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your official warning.  
> Warning for what?  
> Nothing good, that's for sure.

The knocking on the front door became less and less comforting every time Lance heard it echoing through his house. He could feel it rattling his bones whenever it sounded. When Lance heard it this time, it shook him awake, breaking him out of his slumber immediately. He swallowed down a scream that had been building in his throat when he was jarred into consciousness. A cold sweat broke out over his entire body and he heaved once, on the verge of tumbling into a cycle of hyperventilation. His sleep had been restless to begin with after he had run into Romelle, but being suddenly startled by the front door like that wasn’t helping him at all.

Lance glanced around his room, his chest rising and falling dramatically as he attempted to regain a breathing pattern that felt natural. His room was dark, the section of the window that wasn’t covered by his curtains was pitch black, there wasn’t a hint of light anywhere. Lance’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Usually, when his mother and sister were up, there was a steady glow of light emitting from between the columns in the banister. There was silence all around him as well. He listened, straining his ears for the sound of pots being bustled and laughter, maybe even the morning radio. He was met with another frantic rapping on the door, causing him to jerk back.

His phone was on the bedside table. Furrowing his eyebrows, Lance reached a disorientated hand over though the syrupy blackness to grab it. Harsh light assaulted his eyes, but he squinted through it. 3:28. A grimace worked into Lance’s face and his eyes flicked back up to the door of his bedroom. Who was beating down his door in the middle of the early morning when no one was up? Lance’s blood ran cold as the question formed in his mind.

Quickly, yet cautiously, Lance tossed his phone into the blankets of his bed and kicked his legs out. He tiptoed out of his room and peered over the edge of the railing to see his front door. In the day, there were shadows of the people on the other side being cast through the blinds, but in the dark, there was nothing. Eerily, the knocking returned, but lighter, as if they knew that Lance had drawn nearer. Swallowing thickly, Lance snuck down the stairs in the pitch black, determined not to give himself away. The hair on his arms stood up and every alarm bell was going off in his head.

Stood at the bottom of the stairs, directly in front of the door, Lance shuffled forward, careful to avoid tripping on his shoes that were there. He was abruptly thrust into awareness as he stared down and was greeted by his bare legs. His arms weren’t much better, protected by nothing more than a thin, long-sleeved shirt. Not only was he not prepared to fight anyone so late at night, but he wasn’t ready to run away either. It begged the question of why he was bothering to answer the door at all, but still, Lance positioned his eye to look through the peephole. There was a shadowy figure on the other side with no distinct features. Fantastic, that really gave Lance a lot to go off of.

As he was peering, the door was knocked on again, kickstarting Lance’s heart and sending him careening backwards. “Who is it?” Lance called, his voice cracking as he did.

“Police!” was the only response he got. It was Zarkon’s voice though, Lance was confident in that at least.

Still guarded, Lance flicked the lights on in the front entrance. He twisted the lock on the door, listening to the final clunk of the bolt as it released its hold on the door. Slowly, Lance opened the door, just enough to confirm the Sheriff’s presence.

“What do you want?” Lance questioned.

“You were at the party earlier, were you not?” Zarkon asked. He didn’t offer any explanation.

Lance was about to answer, but his eyes and ears were drawn to the road past Zarkon. At the end of Lance’s driveway, he could see the flashing of headlights. There were two trucks driving up the mountain trail, each filled to the brim with people. Lance’s heartrate picked up a little bit more as he realized that this visit was something serious.

“Yeah, I was,” he choked out.

The light behind Lance was turned on, the entire upstairs hallway lighting up. Both Lance and the sheriff turned to inspect the source, seeing Ms. McClain standing at the top of the staircase, hugging her bathrobe around her torso tighter, a scowl on her face. At her side, Veronica was standing in her summer camp t-shirt and her high school gym shorts, looking confused and concerned.

“What’s going on?” their mother asked as she made her way down the stairs.

Veronica leaped down as well, two steps at a time so she could reach the news faster. “Did something happen?”

Before Lance could explain that he was just trying to find that out for himself, Zarkon piped up, “Allura Leon went missing last night.”

And that was it, that was the other shoe that Lance had been waiting for the drop of. His entire body sagged into itself and his ears rang. He wasn’t even aware that he was falling until Veronica was shouting out an expletive of surprise and holding him back up. Lance couldn’t feel anything, his entire mind shutting down and replaying that same image of Romelle over and over again; the desperate panic painted over her face like the blood that was dripping from her open head wound.

“No!” Lance hollered. “Why are they going up the mountain?”

“I just need to know if you saw anything,” Zarkon asked, ignoring Lance’s outcry.

Their mother shook her head. “We’ve been inside all night, Sheriff. Lance came home early last night and then we all went to bed,” she explained calmly, although her worried eyes flicked up to the mountain over the officer’s shoulder every so often.

Lance couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t feel it; the presence of darkness or death. Lance had to know, though. He could see everyone hurrying up Altea, presumably in search of Allura. She was supposed to be a doctor. She was going to the city to follow her dreams and be something amazing, something beautiful. Maybe she left early, and that was all this was. It was a false scare for no reason because she was fine and was on a trip to the city to make something of her life like she had always wanted. Something in the back of his brain whispered sickly into his ear, dripping with pure concentrated horror, _“Like Romelle was?”_

Ripping from Veronica’s grip, Lance slipped on his sister’s flats and bounded past the sheriff, unshed tears in his eyes. He didn’t waste any time with his own shoes or a coat because none of that mattered. He hurried down the steps to the symphony of his family’s cries and the sheriff’s startled yell. “Lance!” Veronica shouted.

Lance wasn’t listening. His feet hit the gravel path as he pushed his body to its limit, his muscles working as fast as they could. Every pound of his heart felt final. The tears that streamed his face were hot and blinding. He ignored them. The only thought on his mind was Allura and where she was, whether or not she was okay. She had to be okay.

Lance reached the end of the driveway and sharply turned to start climbing the mountain. He didn’t have a flashlight like everyone else, but he didn’t need one. The psychic ability that allowed him to feel dark energy was all that Lance needed to find out if Allura had been dragged up there or not.

As Lance reached the top, he scanned the forest. All over, there were streaks of light and hollers of Allura’s name as people from town spread out in search of the missing girl. The fact that they were picking the mountain to search in large groups was what Lance was most frightened by. Had they searched the rest of the town? Was there really no possibility of Allura being anywhere but in a shallow grave. He stopped that thought before it could properly form. His breathing was already ragged enough and he could barely tell his dreadful thoughts from the genuine energy radiating off the mountain.

Standing in the dark, completely disorientated and unsure of where to start or what to do, Lance’s body seemed to falter. He sagged forward, hopelessness flooding his system.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed his arm and yanked him sideways into the underbrush. “Whoa!” Lance squawked as he lurched into the leaves of the foliage.

“Shh!” a harsh voice hushed.

Lance narrowed his eyes into the darkness. “Keith?” he whispered.

“Follow me,” he hissed. It was definitely Keith. Leading him through the strange little path that was carved out on the other side of the giant bushes, Keith brought Lance out into a small clearing where they were free to talk without people thinking Lance had completely lost his mind. It was difficult to see everything around him in the dark, but not Keith. Lance found that it wasn’t that ghosts glowed in the dark or were in any way luminescent, but it was more like they weren’t touched by the darkness of the real world and so they didn’t get darker like the rest of the earth. The darkness didn’t touch them just like the light, the wind, and the rain didn’t touch them.

“Keith, she’s missing,” Lance poured his heart out, his eyes widening in fear.

Keith nodded, an expression unlike any that Lance had ever seen on his face. “I know, I know.” His jaw clenched and his eyebrows pinched in such strong anger. “I told him it was going to happen, I knew it, and still nothing changed!”

“Who’s ‘he?’” Lance muttered.

“I should have been able to stop this, this was preventable, and still, she–” he cut himself off, his eyes shifting between Lance’s and unfathomable pain playing behind his eyes. “Sorry…” he mumbled.

Lance took a shuddering breath. “This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, right?” he meekly asked.

“Right,” Keith replied. His voice was strong but his eyes weren’t. They both knew what Keith was thinking, even though there wasn’t any evidence that something had actually happened to her yet. Keith’s words didn’t help Lance at all. They stared at each other, an understanding passing between them that they had to stop talking and start looking for Allura. “C’mon, let’s start looking.”

They began determinedly searching through the woods, wandering from one side of the clearing to the other, their eyes on the lookout for something, anything, even in the pitch black. Luckily, the moon was out, illuminating the ground below them enough for the dirt Lance walked upon to be visible.

“What was she wearing?” Keith implored, watching Lance with his intense, violet eyes.

Lance tried to think. He tried his best to remember the last time he saw Allura at the party; what she was wearing, how her hair was done up, her shoes, accessories, everything. His voice wobbled, but he told Keith what he could, “It was a long, white dress. There was floral lace at the top too. Her hair was down. I– I think she had matching flower earrings and a necklace…” Lance shook his head. “I can’t remember what her shoes looked like, I–” He choked on his words and ducked his head.

Keith was right next to him, tilting his head down so he could look Lance in the eyes. “That’s okay, Lance, that’s more than enough information,” he encouraged.

“I’m so scared, Keith,” Lance whispered into the dead of the night.

Keith’s eyes softened and his frown shook. If Lance hadn’t known better, he would have guessed that Keith was about five steps from crying too. “I am too,” he confessed. With a thick swallow, Keith stared straight ahead. “We need to think this through. We can’t just go chasing our tails through the forest at night,” reasoned Keith as he studied the forest at the other end of the clearing. “What about the clearing?” he suggested.

“She won’t be there, it’s too far away,” Lance countered.

With a slow, contemplating nod, Keith agreed, “Maybe not, but we can start there. This way,” he guided Lance through the woods in the direction of the clearing where the last bones were found. Lance followed without protest, but his heart cried out that he couldn’t go back to that part of the mountain again.

“She’s not dead,” Lance piped up.

Keith turned back to stare at him for a moment too long.

The silence slipped around Lance’s neck like a noose and stole all his air away as it tightened. “She’s lost,” he continued. “Maybe she sprained her ankle. I’ve done that up here before.”

Keith didn’t say anything about it other than a quick, “Maybe.” Then, he smiled and turned back to continue walking. The smile was weighted and was really more of a grimace, but Lance pretended he didn’t notice. He pretended he believed himself when he spoke too. “Where would she go for shelter if she were lost or hurt? She couldn’t have gone very far, right? Not in this darkness,” Keith furthered. His eyes scanned the forest around them as well as the ground ahead of himself.

“I brought her up the mountain a few times and showed her the best place to pick berries. She was always looking for berries to use in her recipes that didn’t cost as much as the ones at the shop. That’s the only reason she would even come up here,” Lance stated. He jogged to catch up to Keith, who was walking slightly ahead of Lance. He let himself believe that it made sense for Allura to be berry picking at such a late hour while in a dress. “It was a pretty open place with a few bushes. She’d be able to find it.”

Keith’s eyebrows narrowed in grim determination and he picked up his pace a little bit. “I think I know where you mean,” he agreed. “Let’s go.” Then, pausing, he turned back to Lance with worry tainting his features, as if he had just remembered something. “Are you alright, by the way? For visibility?”

Lance blinked, momentarily confused. “Yeah,” assured.

“Good. Make sure you look out for anything that looks like someone ran through it,” Keith instructed.

They rushed through the woods. Keith moved assuredly and with ferocious urgency, never missing a single step. Lance attempted to keep up the pace that Keith was setting, but it was quite hard when Lance was wearing flats that weren’t his and didn’t fit properly. His legs were also being badly scratched up by all the bushes he was forcing himself past. None of that mattered though, not when he didn’t know where Allura was and if she was safe or not.

Above them, the moon continued to shower their path in a light blue glow, creating the effect that every leaf Lance passed may have been a piece of Allura’s dress. His heart palpitated each time, but whenever he took a second look, he was just let down again. Maybe it was a good thing that none of the leaves were actually Allura’s dress. Somehow, though, it would have been better to know that something bad had happened to her than to not know what had happened at all. That was all that Lance could think after learning about Romelle’s situation years later.

Finally, the pair burst out into a clearing. It was littered with bushes, but not a single tree in sight. Just as Lance had always remembered it. There were countless berries, some ripe and some not. They tugged at Lance’s heart just to know that they were there and Allura was nowhere. He couldn’t explain it, but it was like he was looking at Allura herself when he scanned the empty field of berry bushes. At night, it was so peaceful, yet eerie.

“Allura!” Lance shouted. There was no response. “Allura!” He listened carefully, waiting for some sort of call, but all he heard was the shuffling of nature all around him as the wind slithered through. If he listened hard enough, he could barely hear the calls from the other people in town, all looking for Allura as well.

Keith wandered amongst the bushes, his gaze aimed steadily at the ground. “Lance, look for signs that the ground’s been disturbed.”

Lance’s whole body froze. “Like a grave?” he asked, his voice wavering. He did as he was told anyway, robotically stepping forward to search the dirt amongst the bushes.

“Or footsteps,” Keith quickly corrected. “Maybe Allura was here before. She could have dropped something too. You don’t know.” Keith continued to kick at the bushes and peer under them, scowling as he did.

They scanned the entire forest opening, hunting for a single sign that Allura had been through there at any point during the night. They started at one end, each working their way across the field. Keith gravitated towards the west side of the opening wile Lance took the east perimeter. Both of them pushed aside leaves and dug into bushes. They inspected every inch of their sides, making rounds, checking then double checking. It felt like days that they were out there, but it was really more like fifty or so minutes.

Finally, Lance threw his hands up, frustrated and distressed at the lack of evidence that anyone had been there recently, let alone Allura. “She’s not here!” he hollered. Tears of weariness began welling up in his eyes again and he grabbed at his hair just to give himself something to do with his hands, which were torn up and scratched from fumbling in the darkened bushes for an hour. The mountain was such an enormous place and Lance was really starting to believe that they would never find her.

Keith, who was across the field, still shoving bushes around, glanced up at Lance. “Hey,” he called out, “Lance, breathe.” As he spoke, he stepped closer to Lance, offering his hands as if Lance would be able to take them and squeeze them.

Lance stumbled closer anyway, tears blocking his already partially obscured vision. “Keith, where is sh–” Lance yelped abruptly. One second, he was staggering after Keith and his outstretched hands, the next, he was facedown in the dirt. Lance didn’t even notice the protruding lump in the dirt until after he had already tripped over it.

“Lance!” Keith crouched next to him, concerned after seeing Lance disappear into the bushes of berries, being dragged down by gravity and his own clumsiness.

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Unbelievable pain bloomed in the back of his head and he curled into himself right there on the ground, bringing his knees up to his chest. His head throbbed, feeling like it was being split open from the inside outwards. Grabbing feverishly at his own scalp and rubbing his fingers into it over and over again, Lance tried to quell the pain. He whimpered to himself and rocked in the dirt. Above him, Keith was calling out to him, as confused and scared as Lance was.

Slowly, Lance managed to crack open a single eye and extend one flexed hand out to the mound of dirt that he had tripped over. “There’s something,” he choked out.

Keith’s cold hands were on his back and shoulders, attempting to help him up even though he was hardly tangible enough to lift a feather. Lance and Keith moved closer to the freshly churned dirt that they had both overlooked somehow. His head continued to throb, but Lance did his best to work through it. Fresh scrapes were etched into his bare legs and he was sure that he lost one of Veronica’s shoes on the other side of the mound, but he barely noticed in his haste.

“Lance, that’s…” Keith heaved. His face was somehow even more pale than ever.

Lance’s vision wasn’t as good as Keith’s in the darkness, but as Keith, in all his perfectly lit glory, crawled closer through the dirt and forced some nearby bushes away, there wasn’t a doubt in Lance’s mind as to what the swelling in the dirt was.

“Oh, _god!”_ Lance shrieked. “No! Oh, fuck, please!” The pain in his head was overpowered by the pain in his heart and he dragged his body closer. It was a grave. He dug his fingers into the dirt and began scraping it away, scooping it up. His hands were sore and worn out from the leaves and twigs he had scratched himself on earlier, but he didn’t slow. “Allura!” he screamed. Keith was watching him, his mouth hung open and his body limp in the way he just kneeled there, frozen.

Something caught Lance’s fingers then. It was silky and thin, like fabric. He ripped it from the dirt, squinting at it in the moonlight. White fabric. That was Allura’s dress.

Lance pushed himself back, lurching away from the grave. He screamed the entire time. His throat was raw with the flood of emotions that was attacking him in that moment. Gripping the fabric as hard as he could, Lance shoved it as far into his chest as he could and shrieked. His face was on fire with the heat of his tears and the amount of blood rushing to his head. He was so dizzy, he couldn’t see straight, everything was spinning. Saliva dripped down his chin as he choked out random strings of English, Spanish, and just general pained noises. His heart felt like it was about to explode in agony and he clawed at his chest, not sure what else to do. Everything throbbed, every part of his body.

Above him, there was yelling. People were rushing over towards Lance, trampling the bushes and flashing lights everywhere in their attempt to find the source of the screaming. Lance, with his throat raw, just curled in on himself as if it would stop his heart from shattering, and sobbed wildly.

“Lance!” someone called out. Suddenly, Dr. Holgersson was crouching down at his side. As Lance looked up, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the grave before him, but he was aware of half the town closing in on the area. An unbelievable amount of rage and emptiness overtook him, beating him over the head like a brick. His headache throbbed painfully. A gurgling choke forced out from his throat as he struggled to speak, to beg the doctor to tell him that Allura wasn’t under that heap of earth.

Sheriff Zarkon pushed to the front, bumping into Mr. Kolivan and Ms. Te-Osh as he did. Shiro was near the front of the crowd too, his eyes shimmering with disbelief and grief. Adam was there, resolve in his eyes. Everyone from the town was there, crowding around Lance as he huddled next to a grave, clutching a white cloth in his soil-covered hands.

“Lance, come away from there!” his mother shouted. She pushed through the throngs of people, still in her bathrobe, to reach her son.

He shook his head and sobbed, never letting his eyes pull away. Keith was still dropped in the dirt next to Allura’s grave, his limbs weak and his face as broken as Lance felt. Lance’s mother and the doctor continued to pull at him, attempting to help him while not really helping him.

“No!” Lance cried. “I need to know! Is it her? I need to know!” he blathered hysterically.

Different members of the town arrived with shovels, jostling their way through the crowd in order to reach the grave, which was drowned in light from all the flashlights that everyone was aiming. There was a heavy blanket layered over everyone, suffocating them all. The only noises were the sounds of dirt being hauled out of place, several people – including Lance – weeping, and the frigid night wind. Keith had shuffled out of the way of the people who worked on the grave, which seemed to be all he was capable of as he curled into himself and watched over his knees as they dug. Lance faired no better.

It was eerie to be surrounded by so many people in the town while knowing full well that one of them had done this, had harmed all these girls, had looked at Allura the previous night in her beautiful white gown and decided that that light in her eyes must be stolen. Lance shivered. He had known these people for years. They had all known each other for years, some for lifetimes, and yet one of them was a murderer. Lance’s throat felt like it was closing all over again. One of the people crowding around this grave was the one who had made it in the first place. They were watching, inspecting their work, all while playing the part of another grieving towns member. Bile rose in Lance’s esophagus.

“Stop,” Zarkon instructed. “Stop digging for now.”

The people who had been working away at the pile of dirt, anguishing away over what they might find, halted. They reluctantly pulled their shovels away and stepped back, relieved that they didn’t have to do anymore, but just as impatient to find out if it was Allura or not as everyone else was.

Zarkon stepped forward and began brushing some of the soil away with his hands. He let out a heavy sigh and dispersed some more dirt. Grabbing hold of something, he lifted it from the half-upturned grave. It was a chain, completely white with floral beads on it, like a pearl necklace of flowers. Some of the beads were missing while some were half torn and tattered from the dirt. Lance recognized it instantly as it matched the exact pattern of Allura’s earrings and dress.

The moment it was removed from the dirt, Lance could feel the waves of darkness, of pain and suffering, of panic come tumbling off of it, surrounding him in droves. He screamed, an excruciating feeling overtaking his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. His nose felt plugged. There was shouting around him, but he couldn’t hear it. His ears were stuffed. And all at once, Lance’s consciousness was kicked out from under him and he fell away.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Everything was dark. Lance heaved, struggling to breathe. He reached his hands out before him only to find that they were wrapped in fabric. Wildly kicking his legs, Lance felt the fabric leave his body. As his lungs wheezed, he flung his hands at his face, scratching and swiping away. There was nothing there.

“Hey, Lance, calm down!” he heard his sister’s voice call out to him.

“You’re safe. It’s okay, _mijo,”_ his mother soothed. Her hands were on his face, petting his hair down and cleaning up the sweat around his forehead.

Lance’s vision slowly returned and his nose cleared. The initial panic ebbed, but his heartrate continued to rapidly beat away. Turned out that he wasn’t wrapped at all, there was just a blanket on him. He stared at the ceiling, controlling his breathing and trying not to throw himself into another fit of hyperventilation. On his tongue was the taste of dirt, seeping down his throat and filling out the crevices of his teeth. Lance licked his lips, scrunching up his face in disgust. He was quickly aware of the fact that he was no longer on the mountain. It seemed that he had been moved back to his own house and had been settled on the closest couch to the door. Not that Lance minded, but it was jarring at first.

As he stared around at the people who were watching him, his chest still surging as he calmed himself, Lance took in the worried expressions. His sister was at his side, practically dangling herself over the back of the couch to stare down at him in concern. When Lance turned his head to the left slightly, he was met with his mother’s reassuring smile as she sat in one of the kitchen chairs that had been dragged into the living room. At the other end of the couch, watching him carefully, was Dr. Holgersson. Next to him, deputy Sendak stood. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned forward to stare at Lance. Even his concerned face was intimidating.

“There he is,” the doctor smiled. “He’s coming to now.”

Lance stared at him through groggy eyes, then he slowly brought his hands up to his face. Just seeing them was enough to make Lance choke. They were covered in scratches and cuts, tinted black from the dried blood and the flecks of dirt lodged in each laceration. The injured extended as far up his arms as he could see from his position on the couch. Some of his fingernails were chipped or broken off entirely, but all were completely packed with soil. Tears well in Lance’s eyes. Everything rushed back to him and he felt weak all over again. His arms dropped back onto the couch next to him. Allura was dead.

“Take it easy,” Sven instructed, stepping forward. “You’ll be dizzy if you get up too fast, and I still need to take another look at your hands.” He rummaged through a bag that was at his hip, presumably searching for bandages.

Lance opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He hissed in pain. There was a throbbing soreness that radiated up his entire throat. The screaming and crying he had done in the woods really did a number on him. His eyes flicked over to Veronica.

“I’ll get you some water,” she told him, catching onto the pleading in his eyes quickly. One of her hands came down to comfortingly press into his shoulder before she quirked her lip and darted off to the kitchen.

Lance’s mother was stroking her fingers through his hair, staring at him with such profound sadness that Lance couldn’t help but feel like he should be the one comforting her. “You shouldn’t have run out there like that, Lance,” she muttered under her breath. Her eyes were distant as she studied his face.

“Allura’s dead,” Lance rasped. The tears that balled up at the corners of his eyes finally reached their tipping point, spilling past his lids and down his temples.

“I know, _mi hijo,_ I’m so sorry,” she whispered back. Her lip quivered and she swiped the tears away from her son’s skin, using the pads of her fingers to massage him. Lance let his eyes close again. _“Lo siento mucho.”_

One of his hands, still covered in blood and dirt, came up to grab at the sleeve of his mother’s shirt. Like an impatient child who was fighting for attention, Lance gently tugged on her sleeve. “I felt it,” he mouthed. She knew what he meant and her eyes shimmered with grief. Lance as so tired, every part of his body felt like it had been shoved through the wringer. To make matters worse, the horrendous evil that floated around each girl’s death seemed to be stuck to Lance, like a warning, because he could still feel it hovering over him.

Veronica returned then. She handed Lance a glass of water, which he managed to sit up. He thanked her and graciously sipped at the drink. It tasted like liquid gold, so refreshing and easing on his aching body. Lance was certain that he was hydrated after all the crying he had been doing. The burning in his throat was immediately alleviated and he felt his shoulders drop in relief.

“Lance,” the deputy asked.

“Hm?” Lance grunted. He followed the officer’s movements as he shuffled closer to the couch, a little notebook and pen in his hands.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” he opened, readying his pen over the book of paper.

Lance shook his head and furrowed his eyebrows. “No, no. What time is it?” he questioned. His neck strained as he scanned the room in search of anything indicating the time. The windows were all blocked by the curtains.

Veronica answered him as she stared at her phone for the time, “It’s six o’clock. You’ve been asleep a few hours.” Her lips were downturned as she met Lance’s gaze.

“I just need to know if you have any information about Ms. Leon; if you saw her during the party, if you saw her leave with anyone, if you saw her around your house or around the mountain when you were on your way home, if there was any specific reason you left early, how you found her before everyone else.”

The more that he spoke, the clearer it became to Lance that he was very much under the belief that Lance had something to do with not only Allura’s death, but Romelle’s as well. That was the most widely held belief amongst the people of the town. Lance didn’t have any mind to fight him though, not like he usually would. The last thing that Lance wanted to do was to answer questions or deal with being a suspect. It was all so fresh and new. There was no way that Lance was ready to relive any of what he had just been through. He had felt it, all of it. Allura’s death was so vivid in his mind when he had passed out that if he walked through those woods again in his memory, Lance feared that he would throw himself back into reliving the final moments of Allura’s life, but he knew he had to do it anyway.

Allura wasn’t dead when he put her in the grave. Whoever had put her there had stricken her over the head with some sort of sharp object. Lance couldn’t be sure what, but he was guessing a shovel or a rock. When he looked back on it, he was sure that there were stab wounds in her torso as well because the fire that pulsed in his body from the residual memories was far too strong to be from a punch or fall. It was too concentration. She had been stabbed with something. Lance’s eyes watered as he thought about it. But that wasn’t enough. None of those injuries were enough to kill Allura because she was willful, strong, and she always put up a good fight, no matter the situation. When she was in that grave with dirt being piled on top of her, she was alive.

Lance heaved again as the thought formed clearly in his mind; Allura had been attacked and buried alive. He grabbed at his chest, struggling to breathe. His mother startled and grabbed at his arm to comfort him, interlocking their fingers, eyes wide. Veronica, too, leaned down to grab her brother’s hand. They were cooing at him, trying to calm him down, but Lance wasn’t focused on that. Rather, Lance continued to walk through his memories. It was painful and agonizing, but he needed to know if he could see the killers face. That was the important part.

Allura had been in the shallow grave, pushing her hands out before her. She had dug at the dirt struggling, kicking, thrashing, flailing, fighting for air. Every time she opened her mouth to take in more air, she was met with dirt. More dirt, more soil, more earth. It filled her ears, her mouth, her nose, her eyes. She was completely encased in the ground, writhing as she died. One of her hands had breached the surface. Lance could feel the cool night air on his skin, Allura’s skin. That must have startled the killer, because the shovelling stopped. There was clattering somewhere above the dirt pile. Lance could barely focus on it with all the dirt that was weighing down on her and killing her, but he had forced himself to look on through Allura’s mind.

Then the shovel. Like an unseen guillotine from the sky, the shovel had descended through the dirt and sliced directly into Allura’s forehead again, not far from the original injury. And that was that. Allura was knocked out cold, her hand fell limp, and she suffocated to death on the dirt while she bled out.

Lance searched. He rewound the tape. Again, and again, Lance went back in time, doing everything that he could to see through the dirt, to pull it away from his face enough to see who it was, who could have done this to Allura. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, _nothing!_ Lance couldn’t see a damn thing. He pulled from every memory that Allura’s grave had given him, sobbing as he did.

“I can’t see him!” Lance shouted in agony. Everyone in the room watched on as Lance broke down into unrelenting sobs. Allura was dead, and Lance couldn’t help her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry :(


	13. Ulna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more healing than any actual investigation stuff, not that they were very good at that to begin with.

Days had passed. How many? Lance couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t really keeping up on that anymore. It was difficult to tell what time it was when all you did was lug yourself around the house, cry, and give the barest minimum effort to keep from dying. Lance wasn’t all that interested in the time anyway. Night, day, none of it really mattered that much. Not to Lance.

Wherever Lance was in the house, no matter what he was wearing, he was still constantly freezing. He couldn’t enjoy any of the meals that he was eating. Food was never really something that Lance was too invested in, but he still found comfort in eating and in the nostalgic flavours of his mother’s cooking. Yet, there Lance was, unable to enjoy a single thing she made. The taste of dirt never left his mouth, not even when he ate. Every footstep that Lance took seemed to drag. He was so tired. It took all his effort not to think about Allura. Rather, Lance just pretended that she had gone off to the city to become a nurse, it was easier that way.

Veronica was concerned about him. His mother was concerned about him. That was understandable. They were also hit with the murder of Allura – everyone in town was – but they weren’t friends with Allura like Lance was. Lance could see their weary and worried looks every time they looked at him. They were checking on him a lot more than they used to. School wasn’t going anymore since Lance had officially graduated, but Veronica still came to wake him up every morning. It was unnecessary though, since Lance couldn’t sleep. She was kinder when she woke him though; she didn’t jokingly insult him anymore. Lance wished she would so that something would be normal again.

For some reason, Lance felt responsible for Allura’s death, as if there was a way that he could have prevented it. Maybe if he had just been a better detective and found the killer beforehand, or if he had been watching her closer at the party, or if he had taken Romelle’s warning a little more seriously, maybe then she would still be alive and the killer would be behind bars.

At some point, while Lance was forcing his rotting corpse of a body around the house again, he received a knock on the door. Lance turned his head to the front door and glared at it for a moment. He was just heading back up to bed with his bowl of soup, blue lion slippers on his feet and blanket draped over his shoulders. Lance sighed, wishing that everyone would just leave him alone to mope. Still, he set his soup down on the end table next to the couch by the door. He shuffled over to the door and flicked the lock. Without checking who was there, he opened the door. He didn’t need to check. He knew.

“Hey, guys,” Lance’s raspy voice called out.

On the porch, Hunk and Pidge hovered, awaiting Lance once more. They had been coming over daily and that was really the only clock system that Lance had been paying attention to since the night of the party. Both of them watched Lance with fret in their eyes, as they always did. They were good at hiding it, at least, Lance was just better at seeing through them.

“Hey, man!” Pidge greeted. She smiled as if nothing was wrong. Lance knew she didn’t mean it in a bad way, she was just trying to cheer Lance up and help him heal. He smiled back gratefully. This routine repeated daily, and every time, Lance found it hard to crack his stiff muscles out of the frowning form that they had adopted.

“Hi, Lance,” Hunk waved. His smile was less reassuring to Lance because he had always been worse at hiding his fears and concerns. Not that that was a bad thing though. It did help to ground Lance and remind him that life went on, even though Allura and Romelle weren’t with them anymore. It made him think about all the other people in town who were going to die if Lance didn’t use his psychic powers appropriately for once. For all that Lance was not, resilient wasn’t one of them.

Pidge guided Lance out of the house, the same way that she always did, by stepping casually backwards to seat herself on the edge of the porch while giving her best impression of interesting news. “Did you hear what the police are doing?” she asked conspiratorially as she settled down.

Lance, always one to take the bait, if only to feel normal again, followed Pidge and Hunk out of the house. “No, what’re they doing?” he prodded. After days of recovering, Lance found that it was easier and easier to leave the house and have these conversations with his friends every day. It was never full-out easy, but it wasn’t nearly as difficult as the last day, and that, to Lance, was healing.

“They’re bringing in a provincial detective,” Hunk revealed.

“From Kerberos,” Pidge added.

That actually was news to Lance. Usually, the news wasn’t all that interesting, but this was genuinely something of interest to Lance. He hobbled his way to the edge of the porch and seated himself next to Pidge. Hunk followed, choosing the open space next to Lance. “That’s good, then, isn’t it? They’ll find the killer faster this way.” Lance implored his friends with his eyes. There was a small well of excitement and relief forming in the pit of his stomach, but he didn’t let it distract him too much.

“I hope so,” Pidge answered, glancing away from Lance and staring off into the middle distance. “I don’t think the local police are equipped to handle killers of this type.” She sighed to herself and leaned back, her hands spreading out on the wooden deck.

Hunk frowned. “There are types?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Y’know,” Pidge gestured vaguely, “the type who kill for no reason and don’t stop until they are stopped. You hear a lot about people who kill because they want something and it’s all about greed. Some people want money, some want a new spouse, some want revenge for something,” she listed all the things out on her fingers, still gesturing, “but some just want to hurt others and there’s no reason for it. Those are the hardest ones to catch, I think.”

“Oh,” Hunk mumbled.

They sat in silence for a moment as each of them took in the information that Pidge had rattled off. Lance listened to the whispering wind as it fluttered past, tickling at his face and rustling his scraggly hair. Leaving the house like that was nice, even if it was just to sit on the front porch and listen to his friends update him on the town’s happenings. He wondered if it was time that he went back to town again. He needed to stop by the school and pack up all his belongings, get his diploma, say goodbye properly, all that stuff. It hurt to think about.

“They did the autopsy,” Pidge added after a few beats.

Lance was immediately pulled from his thoughts about life and he instinctively turned to Pidge.

“They had to send her stomach and heart to Daibazaal. Apparently, we don’t have the supplies here to tell if she’s been poisoned or not so some university has to do it. I wonder if they’re going to bring them back in time for her funeral or if she’ll just be buried without them,” Pidge angrily questioned, tilting her head back to look up at the sky. Her feet kicked at the dirt.

“You didn’t have to tell him that, Pidge” Hunk gently protested.

Pidge’s eyes widened and she turned to Lance. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… yeah…”

Lance nodded, although he felt sick just thinking about Allura being slid up on a table and sliced open. He wasn’t even thinking about her insides until Pidge had said that. It suddenly struck Lance just how different everything would be. Allura was going to be in the dirt again, just like she was the night before, but her innards were going to be in the lab where she was supposed to study, without her. Hopefully, the thought would leave him before the funeral.

“How is Alfor holding up?” Lance asked instead.

“Not so great,” Hunk sighed. “He’s being visited by the doctor almost daily now. I can’t imagine what he’s going through. First his wife, now his daughter.” Hunk shook his head and fiddled with his hands.

Lance’s frown deepened. “That’s… horrible…”

Pidge agreed with a hum. “You have no idea, Lance. Everyone is so scared. The town is dead silent all the time. No one speaks to each other anymore, they just whisper. The place is like a ghost town at night. People start locking themselves up at six, it’s insane. You can see it in everyone’s eyes when they talk to people that no one trusts each other but they still feel safer in groups. Lionsville is falling apart.”

A long sigh left Lance before he could stop it. His head fell to his chest and curled farther into himself. The blanket that was still around his back slid downwards, but he quickly pulled it over his body once more, seeking comfort. It angered him and saddened him at the same time to know that this could all be resolved if Lance could just see the face of the killer, if he could just identify who it was, but he couldn’t.

“Lance?” Hunk called.

“Yeah?” Lance replied.

As he worried his lip between his teeth, Hunk picked at the skin on his hands nervously, not fully making eye contact with Lance. “How did you know?” he finally uttered. His eyes turned to Lance then, searing into him.

Taken aback, Lance furrowed his eyebrows and sat up. “Know?” he echoed, confused.

Hunk dipped his head, looking for the words that seemed so hard to spit out. “How did you know where to find her body?”

“That was the berry field that I showed Allura once. She liked fresh berries. I just thought that maybe she might’ve been there… because she was lost…” Lance explained. He felt his face getting hot with panic as they questioned what he had been doing there. It occurred to him then that he looked alone. It appeared to everyone else like he had just stumbled upon that place by himself without Keith. No one else but Lance could see Keith’s grief.

“We’d gone through that area before though,” Pidge piped up. Her face was apprehensive and suspicious as she stared up at Lance through her bangs, all-seeing eyes digging into his soul. “We didn’t find anything.”

Lance swallowed. “It was easy to miss. There were a lot of bushes and the place was pretty big. I fell over it, that’s how I found it.”

Neither Pidge nor Hunk sounded convinced. Hunk, just as unsure about the information Lance was telling them, squinted at his friend and repeated back, “So, you guessed where she might be and then you happened to find the exact spot, and it was all a coincidence?”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed. The smile that plastered itself involuntarily over Lance’s features felt fake even to himself.

“That’s the part that everyone is having a hard time believing, Lance,” Pidge carefully told him.

Anger spiked, Lance’s smile dropped and he glared at her. “What are you suggesting?” Lance spat.

“We’re not accusing you of anything; we just want to know how you found her,” Hunk attempted to ease. His hand rested on Lance’s shoulder in an effort to diffuse the situation. One of those easy-going smiles that the boy was known for cropped up on his face and Lance immediately calmed.

He sighed to himself. This was it. There really was no way that Lance could continue to look innocent after such a stroke of luck, especially not with all the suspicion that was on him for Romelle’s murder. Everyone in town probably thought he did it. Lance was so tired and weak from all that had happened and all the friends that he had lost recently. He didn’t need anymore. The mask was falling and the resolve was slipping. Lance stared at his hands. “I found it by accident,” he maintained, “but I could feel her.”

Pidge and Hunk both spoke in unison, “What?”

Lance would almost have laughed at the comical reaction, but he was so busy trying to stop his hands from shaking as he told hid story that he barely registered their words. “I guess you could say I’m a clairvoyant. I could _feel_ all the things that she felt in that grave. I could _feel_ her fear and her desperation and her panic. I could _feel_ the dirt being thrown on top of her and the blow to her head, I could _feel_ her _die,”_ Lance heaved his entire story onto them. Tears welled in his eyes and his words might as well have been sobs.

“Lance…” Hunk blurted.

He wasn’t done. “I can _see_ things too! I can see people who are dead and don’t know they’re dead or can’t pass on! I can’t help any of them! There’s a girl in town named Flo and she’s twenty-two but she died forty years ago after getting hit by a car! There’s a little boy named Klaizap and he can’t be more than nine, but he had cancer! Coran was a soldier in the civil war and he’s been dead for two hundred years but we’re really good friends! Keith lives on the mountain! He used to be a farmer and he’s twenty years old and all he wants is to protect people and he was there when we found Allura and I’m _in love_ with him! And I don’t know what to do!” He threw his hands up. Lance’s face was red and stained with tears as he poured out his heart to his friends.

Hunk was staring at Lance wide-eyed, fearful of the things that he was saying. Pidge didn’t look any less unsettled by the things that Lance had just revealed.

“See?” Lance sniffled, running a blanket covered arm over his face to mop up the mess he was making on his cheeks. “This is why I don’t tell anyone about this! They all just think I’m crazy or they get scared…” Lance swallowed the lump in throat. “I didn’t ask to be this way…”

The first to speak was Pidge. She cleared her throat and cautiously asked, “You can see ghosts?”

Lance nodded and sniffled again.

“Hey, Lance, it’s okay,” Hunk comforted. He rubbed his hand up Lance’s arm in an attempt to show his support. Lance appreciated that. “We’re… We’re not going to stop being your friends, you know that.”

Lance smiled gratefully and huffed a harsh laugh.

“Can you see Allura now? Is she here?” Pidge asked, glancing around them at the empty porch.

Shaking his head and wearily letting his head fall onto Hunk’s shoulder, Lance explained, “No, it doesn’t work like that. Her death is too new, and it was unexpected. Allura probably doesn’t realize she’s dead yet. It takes awhile for spirits to accept that they’re dead, if they ever accept it. She probably hasn’t learned to show herself yet. It can take awhile.”

“How long is awhile?” Pidge questioned.

Lance shrugged, “It’s different for everyone, but I just recently saw Romelle and she’s been gone for two years. She wasn’t fully manifested either. It seemed hard for her to appear.”

“You saw Romelle? Can she tell you who the killer is?” Pidge scooted closer, eager for more information.

“Yeah, but only she can control when she’s visible to me or not. I’ve searched for her before, but nothing.”

There were eyes on him, Lance could feel it. He tilted his head up to meet Hunk’s weary gaze. “Have you always been... clairvoyant?” Hunk asked softly.

“I’ve always been able to see things, but the first time that I could feel things was when I was ten or eleven, I think,” Lance answered. “I don’t talk about it though.”

“Why not?” Pidge tilted her head to stare at Lance.

He hummed, “It scares people. That’s part of why we moved here, but you really can’t run from yourself. No matter where I go, it will follow.” The wind whistled around them and Lance stared up at the mountain.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Allura’s funeral went by in a blur. Lance didn’t retain anything from it at all. The funerals were starting to blend together and sound the same to Lance. He didn’t feel like he was watching his friend being lowered into the ground, he just felt like he was back in a field with a bunch of people who all blamed him for something he couldn’t even fathom doing. The grief that Lance felt at the loss of one of his friends was very real, but it was disconnected. After all those days that he had spent locked up in his house mourning her and relearning how to act like a human again, how to function again, it just felt completely foreign to cry.

The weather wasn’t as bad as it had been at Romelle’s funeral. The sky was clear. It felt wrong. Lance stared up at the sky with his brows drawn inward as if he could glare the clouds into dressing up for the funeral. The air was so light and warm as it fluttered. There was a stiff wind though, that was the only thing that was ruining the otherwise perfect weather. Well, it wasn’t perfect for a funeral, but it was quite lovely. Lance couldn’t help thinking that it was the exact type of weather Allura looked forward to every year.

He let his head drop back down to stare out over the expanse of people who were meandering around like zombies, completely lifeless and drained. Most funerals, while sad, had an air of optimism about them. People at funerals tended to laugh with each other and recall funny moments with the deceased, all while wiping away tears at such a bittersweet memory. This wasn’t like that. Everyone was too focused on the fact the town was infested with the kind of evil that you only heard in tales, that you only saw in horror movies. It was solemn. Lance felt that Allura deserved better.

Nearby, Lance could see Shiro standing alone, watching the middle distance. Lance imagined that he was experiencing a lot of the same emotions that Lance was. Perhaps, it was worse for him. He had known Allura longer. At his side, however, there was someone. While Shiro was alone, he wasn’t really alone. Keith. Lance made a noise of confusion to himself from his seat on a rock that bordered the cemetery. Keith hadn’t ever mentioned knowing Shiro, but there stood, his eyes carefully trained on the man’s face, a look of worry overtaking him. Lance wondered if he did know Shiro and Allura at some point. Maybe that was why Keith was hanging out in Shiro’s shop that one time. That was a sad thought. So many losses in such a small town.

At that moment, Keith glanced over, as if he could feel Lance watching him. They made eye contact. Keith gave one last glance at Shiro, frowned, and then meandered away from the white-haired man. Silently, Lance watched and waited as Keith approached him, hands in his pockets and head hung lower than usual. There was no air of confidence about him like there usually was, only despair.

“Hey,” Keith greeted as he settled down on the rock next to Lance. It was a small rock. Had Keith been more tangible, Lance would have been forced to feel the warmth of Keith’s arm against his.

“How’s Shiro?” Lance asked rather.

Keith glanced at Lance out of the corner of his eyes, then back at Shiro. He sighed heavily and let his head fall down until he was hunched over his legs. His black mane flounced up around him with the sudden motion. “Not good,” he announced. The frustration in his voice was palpable. “But who is?” he bitterly asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Lance exhaled. His body sank into the seat he had chosen. Lance couldn’t help but notice as everyone hovering around Allura’s grave seemed to shift amongst themselves, radiating the same empty energy that Lance himself was casting.

“Do you remember,” Keith turned to watch the people while he spoke, “at the waterfall when I told you about my family?”

Lance tilted his head. “Yeah, I do.”

Keith nodded to himself. “I told you that my mother left me when I was eight,” he reminded.

A spike of sympathy stabbed Lance once more, just as it had the first time that Keith had revealed this information. Why was it being brought up again though? “Yeah, I remember,” Lance urged. He felt the need to clasp his hand in Keith’s and to lean into the boy, but he knew that would not only be completely inappropriate and potentially unwanted, but it would also be impossible as long as Keith remained unmanifested.

“I lied about that,” Keith lowly said.

“You– What?” There was a slight ringing in Lance’s ear for a moment and he felt his heartrate pick up. There was something so damning about that phrase, as if Lance should be affronted over something. He let Keith continue though.

“She didn’t leave us. She died.”

Lance’s face melted into one of sorrow. “Oh, Keith, I’m sorry.”

Keith licked his lips, glanced down at his feet, then spoke once more, “She was killed in a hiking accident. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was eight years old and I found her on top of the mountain.”

“Keith,” Lance gasped, horrified.

“She was just lying there in a… a ditch full of blood,” he shuddered. “I remember I tried to wake her up and she wouldn’t open her eyes and I was screaming. I think I ran down the mountain to find my cousin and my dad. They were at the farm but they heard me…” Keith grabbed at his neck. His nails dug into his ghostly pale skin and pulled. He pushed his lips together as hard as he could to stop the quivering, but tears spilled over his eyelids anyway.

At his side, Lance watched it all in slow motion. He felt like he was going to vomit just hearing Keith’s story. “Oh my god,” Lance heaved. “Keith, I’m so sorry, I–” he didn’t know what to say. “Fuck, that’s horrific.”

Keith’s eyes were clenched shut as he struggled to regain his composure. “That was awhile ago. Sometimes, I look for her on the mountain. Maybe she’s still around, y’know, watching over me... Allura reminded me so much of her too. They were alike in a lot of ways.”

“You’re a lot like your mom then,” Lance commented.

Keith smiled wryly. “I’ve been told that actually. Troublemakers.”

“I was thinking determined and headstrong,” Lance corrected. “Just like Allura.” He nudged Keith with his arm, his eyes widening in panic for a moment as he awkwardly phased through Keith. The other boy didn’t seem to notice though, too busy swiping at his watering eyes and chuckling.

Keith bit at his lip, his expression morphing grimly. “Allura was… Allura was so much more than I could ever be. What kind of person would hurt Allura?” Keith suddenly asked. He tossed his hands up as he could retaliate the world. His eyes were wild and angry, but defeated all the same. It killed Lance to see a chunk of Keith taken out so forcefully, but he could relate.

“A monster, you mean. No human would do this,” Lance hissed.

“You know,” Keith began, a harsh laugh leaving his lips as he squinted into the sky, “I really fucking thought that when we figured out the pattern, that it was every two years, we would be able to catch him. I thought that there was no way I would miss it when he came up the mountain if I just stood guard.” Keith paused, his face filtering through a range of emotions, some appearing so painfully on Keith’s face that Lance could feel the hurt himself. “The one night that I wasn’t on guard,” Keith whispered through gritted teeth. He held up a finger and shook it, eyes drilling into Lance’s as he emphasized the words he spoke, “One night. I wasn’t watching the damn mountain for one fucking night,” his hand dropped onto his knee with a smack before he brought it up to give a furious sweeping gesture of the funeral, “and look where we are.”

Lance’s heart dropped and his mouth opened on air, not knowing what to say. There was nothing he could say that would help Keith. “You couldn’t have known…” he offered softly.

“No,” Keith agreed as he ran his hands through his hair and swallowed thickly, “but that decision will haunt me forever.”

They sat in silence. Lance thought back to that night when he had almost kissed Keith at the windowsill. The thought vaguely crossed his mind that that might have been what kept Keith from watching the mountain; the near-kiss. Lance wondered if Keith regretted that, if he had been so distracted by it that he hadn’t even thought twice about the mountain. Lance had been so distracted with it that he hadn’t even blinked when he couldn’t find Allura in the crowd.

“I could have helped her,” he mumbled to himself dejectedly.

Those words that Keith had said to Lance that night too, the ones about wanting to help people. Keith dedicated himself to that mountain so ferociously, enough to make Lance question why sometimes, and then this happened. Keith couldn’t get to Allura in time and it killed him just as much as it killed Lance and everyone else in town.

“You still can,” Lance found himself saying.

Keith turned to him. It was amazing how someone with no ability to alter their appearance as a spirit was able to look so tired and worn out. Lance had never seen him looking so old and broken. It was jarring, like a campfire that had been reduced to nothing but as few smoldering embers. “Hm?” Keith hummed.

“Stopping whoever did this would help her,” Lance said. He put as much conviction as he could into his voice. Even with how broken he felt, he still had fight left in him. He still had something to work for. Lance smiled at Keith.

Keith gave a half-smile back. “Yeah,” he breathed, “you’re right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, y'know, being 18 is honestly whack and I have much less self control than I thought I did. I wanna get an industrial piercing and get a tattoo and I can just do that?? No one can stop me?? So that's what I'm going to do, hahahahahaha I love disappointing my parents!


	14. Patella

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all into vulture culture? I am. I want more than anything to just live in a little cabin on the edge of the woods and collect bones I find and clean them up and sell them, but have my day job be as a coroner. Married to someone who's totally alright with me hanging up animal bones around the house as windchimes. Maybe they run a food truck or something, who knows. That's what I want from life.  
> That has nothing to do with this chapter though, carry on.

The detective arrived in town fairly quickly. Not that anyone thought he wouldn’t, but it was still surprising to see an outsider step out of his car, decked out in a suit with a black overcoat, and march his way through the streets towards the police station. The entire aura surrounding that man was one of condescending importance. He had long white hair that flowed over his back like a veil, painting a streak along his pristine coat. There wasn’t a single thing about his outfit that was out of place, not one thread untucked or one wrinkle not pressed. Not that there weren’t fancy – or even wealthy – people in the town of Lionsville, but there weren’t any people who had the air of authority that that detective did.

Everyone in town had exited their stores and houses nearby to watch the man arrive. Lance had been there to see him. The feeling about him was fairly unanimous with the people of the town; any help they could get was welcomed and needed, but bringing in outsiders was somehow dangerous and a point of weakness at such a low moment. They watched him with eyes of weary mistrust. He watched them with eyes of truth.

Lance had been there to see the man as well. He was standing near one of the shops with his friends, just about to go inside, when the car had rolled up. It was slick, black, and begging for attention in a place that kicked up enough dirt to hide every car’s colour. Pidge and Hunk had been hauling Lance around town in an effort to clear his mind and flush his residual sadness out, but they were also momentarily entranced by the arrival of the new special detective assigned to the case.

It had taken a lot of convincing to get Lance out of the house to begin with. He was stalling. He had been stalling for a long while. The funeral was the first time that he had left the house for anything, and it was hard, but what was harder was doing it again and again, over and over. Pidge and Hunk were there though. They were there, they were supportive, and they were extremely persistent in their attempts to help Lance shed his agoraphobic tendencies. After a couple days of this behaviour, Lance was getting back into the swing of things. He still refused to enter Sal’s diner though. Milkshakes didn’t appeal to him like they used to.

To see the detective as he smoothly disappeared into the police station, though, that somehow gave Lance hope.

That wasn’t the last time that Lance would see him though. For the rest of the week, Lance seemed to only hear about the new detective and what he was up to. That was fine with Lance since he was all for updates on the case, but it was really all the town was talking about. His name was Lotor General and from what the rumour were about him, Lance could only guess that he was an extremely high ranking and reputable individual amongst the countrywide detectives. Good. The case deserved that.

Lance saw him in the streets a few times after that while he was hanging out with Pidge and Hunk. He saw the man interviewing some people, or just general talking to them. It was hard to tell what a guy like that was up to and what his tactics were. Someone from one of the shops was spitting gossip about how he had already interrogated a few people, but as far as Lance was aware, it was all just hearsay.

At some point during one of Lance’s trips through the town to regain his legs again, the detective had wandered past him, meeting his eyes with a gaze so intense it could rival Keith. Nothing more was said than a polite, “Good afternoon,” but it still left Lance feeling like he was under close observation.

Something that Lance also hadn’t missed was the handful of times that he had been up and down the mountain, both during the day and at night. Lance could see him from the window of his living room. No one ever accompanied him. Lance had to wonder if that was because no one in the town could be trusted in that man’s eyes, or if he just operated better alone. It made sense that he would want to go it alone at first though. He wondered if Keith had run across him yet.

By the end of the week, Lance no longer found it difficult to leave the town at all. It progressively got easier every time he did it, to the point where he hadn’t even noticed that he was once again looking forward to getting fresh air and wandering around the town to eat ice cream and hang out with his friends. There was a weight that took everyone down a peg or two, but Lance felt that he wasn’t doing so bad considering what had happened. It helped that he knew he would get to see Allura’s ghost eventually, and the fact that the detective was there to help also eased some of Lance’s sorrow.

It was another one of those days where Lance went out into the town to relearn what normal was. He had stopped waiting for his friends to come to his door, rather opting to meet them up the road like he used to when he was still in school. That wasn’t a problem for them. As he awoke from his slumber and kicked his legs out of bed, Lance couldn’t help but feel a strangeness in the air. He wasn’t sure what it was about. Opting to ignore it since there was no obvious cause of it, Lance urged himself to get ready before exiting his room for another day. Lance wasn’t big on breakfast as of late. He still had the taste of dirt on his tongue, so instead, he wished his mother well and left the house.

Ever since the incident with the mountain, Lance had found it hard to even look at the thing. It was difficult to avoid it since it was right across the street from him and it was as big as it was, but Lance discovered a way around the thing. He forced himself not to think about the people who had died up there, but rather to think of Keith, the guardian of the small mountain. That was his domain and that was what Lance chose to remember it as. Every day when he left, Lance stared at the mountain the entire walk down the driveway. He would think about Keith and all that Keith believed in. That was one of the only things that kept him from breaking down whenever he felt the strength in his heart begin to crumble. Today, however, the strangeness persisted as he stared it.

Pidge and Hunk were up the trail, waiting where they always were. The strangeness continued from there, though. Unlike every other time that Lance met them there, they didn’t wave at him and they didn’t gesture for him to hurry up. Both of them stood there solemnly. As Lance closed in on them, his frown deepened and the pit of strangeness in his stomach expanded.

“Hey, guys, what’s wrong…?” Lance questioned. His footsteps slowed to barely more than an awkward shuffle towards them.

Hunk shared a look with Pidge before letting Lance in on what they were thinking, “Did you hear anything?”

Lance squinted in confusion. “Hear anything about what?”

“Okay, so, you didn’t,” Pidge confirmed, nodding to herself.

“They’re looking for you, Lance,” Hunk said. He wrung his hand nervously and stared at his friend with wide, worried eyes. “They think you know something.”

Lance blinked. It wasn’t the biggest surprise ever. Lance figured that they would bring him in for questioning eventually, or at the very least, pay a visit to his house. Allura was his friend, after all, but then again, who in town wasn’t friends with Allura. Still, Lance was shaken by the seriousness that his friends were treating it with. “Okay?” he cautiously replied, his eyes narrowing as he waited for the part that he was supposed to be concerned about. The source of the strangeness, that was what Lance was hunting for.

Pidge huffed impatiently, “You don’t get it, they think you _know something,”_ she emphasized. “They’re not just talking to you routinely like everyone else, they’re _looking into you,_ Lance.” Her eyes flicked between Lance’s as she conveyed the severity of this information.

And it was being conveyed properly. Lance’s throat went dry. “What do you mean? What evidence do they even have? I didn’t do this!” Lance raved.

Hunk shook his head. “They’re waiting for you in the police station. Adam was leading the whole crusade too.”

“Adam?!” Lane sputtered.

“He says he saw you hiding evidence,” Pidge explained, tossing her hands out up the road to indicate just how ridiculous she found this.

Lance was instantly transported back to that moment on the mountain when him and Keith had been scouring Romelle’s grave for evidence and had found that knife that belonged to Keith. Adam had been there, watching him, accusing him. The knife was still in Lance’s room, hidden from view in his dresser. Lance had completely forgotten that he even had it. Keith’s mom had given it to him and it was one of his most prized possessions, but he’d lost it.

“You weren’t hiding evidence… right, Lance?” Hunk asked.

Snapping back to reality, Lance saw as his friends were watching him disbelievingly. “No,” he weakly argued. “I don’t know why he’d say that…”

Pidge’s eyebrows furrowed. “Right,” she agreed with obvious suspicion. “That fancy detective, Lotor, specifically asked to bring you in after talking to Adam for awhile. If you don’t show up, they’ll just come drag you out of your house.”

“I heard they have another suspect though,” Hunk offered.

Pidge’s lips pursed to the side. “Who’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Hunk confessed as he shook his head. “I just know that they have a really good feeling about this dude.”

Lance sighed and ran his hand down his face. “Well, if not for my sake, then for Allura and Romelle’s, let’s hope they prove it’s him soon.”

With that, they marched down the dusty road leading into town, still discussing amongst themselves the possibilities of the case and what sorts of things would potentially happen once Lance was dragged into the police office and questioned by that suited man who was meant to catch the killer.

As they arrived in town, Lance could feel everyone’s eyes searing into him. Some were judging him angrily, others were fearfully cagey. Lance’s body deflated. Of course, everyone in town knew of his status as a person of interest in the case. News travelled fast, after all. In the centre of town, near the police station and the town hall, as Lance stepped closer, he could see Detective Galra, Sheriff Zarkon, Deputy Sendak, Adam, and a few other officers standing around, all flanked by a large portion of the town. They watched him like a hawk and he narrowed his eyebrows back at them determinedly.

“Lance McClain,” Lotor Galra stated. It was somehow a question and a statement all at once. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Lance conversed as he turned his eyes to glare at Adam. The angry resolve that was in his eyes was enough to strike Lance, but he didn’t back down.

Lotor raised an eyebrow. “I’d like to have a word with you in the station, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Lance very deliberately continued to watch Adam for a second too long before he returned his attention to Lotor. “That’s fine.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it certainly was strong.

Lotor led Lance away from the streets and towards the police station. The entire time, the rest of the officers followed along behind him as if he would attempt to flee at any moment. Around him, people were whispering about him and what he would have to do with the case. Lance’s face twitched as he resisted the urge to let their comments about him being a murderer get to him. Once he was in the station, the door was closed behind him, clicking shut on all the unsavoury opinions that people were expressing about him.

They led him into a side room off the main entrance area. The door was closed after Lance, Lotor, and Adam had entered. While he was heavily outnumbered in the number of people who were against him, it was still better than having every police officer in the room. Another high point that Lance noticed was that it wasn’t the usual interrogation room either, it was just a neat little office with filing cabinets, pictures on the walls, a desk, a faux fern on the floor in the corner, and a bookshelf. It was cozy, and yet, the tension in the air was stagnating everything.

“Mr. McClain,” Lotor began, composed in his delivery, “Mr. Wells, here, claims that you have something from the Romelle Pollux crime scene.”

“Well, I don’t,” Lance retorted as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Adam interrupted, a bitter look on his face, “Yes, you do. It was a knife. There was blood on it. I saw you pull it out of the grave after the police were done searching the area.”

“Well, you can see how serious this situation is, Mr. McClain. We have a series of crimes without a murder weapon, and someone claims that you have a weapon with blood on it. If this is true and you’re hiding information from the police, you could be tried for inhibiting an open investigation at the very least,” his eyes darkened, “and assisted homicide at worst. So, I suggest you really think about whether or not you’ve seen a bloody knife of any type recently or not.”

Lance swallowed thickly. “Maybe…” he began cautiously, “I found something up there and maybe it was a weapon of some sort, but that doesn’t mean I had anything to do with Romelle’s murder. We were _friends.”_ Lance was almost daring him to counter, to say something, to challenge his position as one of Romelle’s most trusted friends in the town, but he didn’t.

“If it wasn’t yours, then why did you steal it from the crime scene?” Lotor questioned. He remained perfectly calm the entire time, even as Adam seemed to shift in his own impatience.

“I said, maybe,” Lance reiterated. “And maybe it was because I didn’t connect it to the murder.” That was such a poor excuse, but how could Lance explain it away when the reason was so absurd. It belonged to his deceased friend.

Adam lurched forward at Lance then. “What do you mean, you didn’t connect it to the murder?! It was in the grave and it was covered in blood!” he accused. “You killed them!”

Lance barked, “No, I didn’t!”

“Monster!”

“They were my friends!” his voice cracked. Lance threw his hands down at his sides, fisted clenched and shoulders hiked up.

Lotor put up a hand to stop him from getting any closer. “Enough,” he ordered. “Mr. McClain, if you don’t explain what happened right now, it’s going to get a lot worse for you.”

Lance’s mind was going a million miles an hour as he attempted to work out what to do.

He couldn’t keep lying to the police. That wasn’t going to look good in court. Plus, they could always get a search warrant for his house and find it easily enough. It wasn’t like Lance had gone out of his way to hide it. Then what? Lance would be arrested for crimes he didn’t commit and his entire reputation would be destroyed, all on top of the fact that the real killer would still be on the loose and no one would be any wiser.

His other choice was to come clean. If he told the police that he had a bloody knife that he had pulled from the grave of a dead girl, that wasn’t going to look good either. Lance didn’t have a good excuse for what he was doing stealing evidence, and the truth didn’t hold up either. That all hinged upon someone believing that he could see ghosts and that there was a dead boy on the mountain who had his knife used in unsavoury acts like murder.

This was a lose-lose situation. Lance couldn’t see a way out. One way was better than the other way though, and so, with a sigh, Lance spoke, “Okay… I did… take the bloody knife… from the grave…” He shrunk in on himself as he said it.

Lotor stood up straighter, a new look in his eyes that Lance couldn’t read. He didn’t like it. “If you didn’t kill them like you claim, then why would you steal evidence that could be crucial to the case?”

“Because–” he cut himself off. “This is going to sound ridiculous.”

Adam, seething, stepped forward again. “Because there’s no other reason besides the obvious; that you did something.”

With a glare, Adam was shut right up by the leading detective. “Try me,” Lotor urged.

Taking in a huge breath, Lance forced himself to calm down. “The knife belongs to my friend. His mother gave it to him and it’s extremely important to him.”

“What?” Adam spat.

“Who is your friend?” Lotor asked. It was the first time that Lance had ever seen the serious man looking so perplexed, but there was a clear look on his face that told Lance he was throwing curveballs with this information.

“It doesn’t matter! He couldn’t have done this; he’s dead!” Lance gesticulated nervously with his hands, hoping he didn’t sound too crazy. “He was dead when Romelle went missing too, so it doesn’t make any sense for his knife to be there unless the real killer stole it and used it! The killer could even be using it to frame him, and I realize that it was stupid of me to take the knife like that, but you have to believe me. That knife would never see the light of day again if I handed it over and it’s one of the only possessions that Keith ever–” Lance clamped his mouth shut.

Lotor and Adam caught it. They caught Lance’s slip up. He hadn’t meant to reveal Keith’s name like that, but it was too late. They knew who the friend was now. Maybe that was important or maybe it wasn’t, but Lance felt horrifically like that was the wrong thing to reveal.

“Keith?” Lotor echoed. He sounded conspiratorial as he whirled the name around in his head like he was swishing a glass of wine around after a light sip.

Adam stared between the two of them. “Keith? Like, Keith Kogane? The Ghost Boy who went missing?”

“How did you…?” Lance began, squinting. His heart plummeted.

“He was Shiro’s cousin,” Adam said.

Lance balked. “His cousin,” he echoed. It made sense when it was spelled out for him like that. No wonder Keith was also so protective of Shiro and knew so much about Shiro. That was also probably why Keith was hanging out in Shiro’s shop that night; to see his cousin. His mind rushed back to the story that Keith had told him about his mother. He had mentioned sprinting back home to tell his father and cousin. Was that cousin Shiro? It had to be. Shiro knew about all of this. Somehow, that shed a weird sort of light on everything that he hadn’t even known could be shone, like a blacklight that revealed the things that Lance was blind to before.

“Keith Kogane? What can you tell me about him?” Lotor asked. There was something about the way he spoke that made Lance think he knew more than he was letting on.

Lance shifted forward, on the offence for the boy he loved, ready to interject at any moment.

Adam shook his head, eyebrows furrowed. “Not much. I never knew him personally. He lived on the farm out past the mountain for awhile, then suddenly him and his father just packed up and left to live on the mountain. Akira, his father, came to town a lot until he passed away, but Keith… we never heard from him again and no one could find him… or any sign of him, for that matter.”

“What did you call him? The Ghost Boy? Why did you say that?” Lotor pressed.

Adam had some decency to look embarrassed of the fact he had referred to Keith that way. Still, he attempted to reason it away, “That was what everyone called him because he was always claiming to talk to the dead when he was younger. Sometimes, he would pass out and wake back up later, but he would know things that there was no way he should have been able to know. It really scared a lot of people. I think people thought he was a demon or a witch of some kind. I know a lot of people wanted him gone, though, that’s for sure…”

Lance felt like he was frozen in time. Keith had never told him that. Keith had never mentioned being shunned by the people in town. The other thing that struck Lance was the fact he could talk to ghosts when he was alive. That was so strange that they would share an ability. Lance had it bad from some of his peers at school and from the neighbours around him, but never enough to be murdered for it.

“How old would he be now, if you had to guess?” Lotor continued.

Shifting his head back and forth as he weighed his estimate, he tossed out a number, completely unsure. “Maybe, eighteen? I’m not sure. He went missing when he was twelve.”

“That’s not possible,” Lance found himself saying, “he died when he was twenty.” This was just as much a learning moment for Lance as it was for Lotor and Adam.

Both turned to Lance then, surprised by his interjection. “How would you even know?” challenged Adam. “He was missing for almost ten years when you showed up in town, how could you even be friends with him?”

Lance’s face lit up like a Christmas tree then. He had nothing to say that wouldn’t give him away for being a clairvoyant, but he also needed to defend Keith’s honour. It wasn’t like they could arrest Keith if he were dead, but the knife was important and it meant something to Lance just like it meant something to Keith.

Just then, Lotor pulled a phone out of his pocket and turned away from the other men in the room. The phone beeped as he punched in a series of numbers before lifting it to his ear. “Keith Kogane, that’s his name,” he told whoever was on the other end without any introduction. He paused. “Kid in the woods, yeah.” There was another pause in which Lance became increasingly more intolerant. The fact that anyone else knew about Keith was strange at all, but within the context of a murder investigation made it worse. “Bring him for questioning. Thank you.” He hung up and pocketed his phone once more.

Lance huffed, exasperated, “I told you, he’s dead. He can’t come in for questioning.”

Lotor smirked, “Perhaps.”

A shiver ran up Lance’s spine at the ominous look in his eyes and Adam seemed just as put off by the expression, but neither spoke. It wasn’t that neither of them had anything to say and it wasn’t that they were both processing or thinking about anything. No, the silence was caused by the sudden shouting outside the police station as it cut through the air. Like a riot, numerous people were yelling. There was one voice, however, that cut above the rest. The three of the people in the little office turned to the door instinctively. Lance’s blood ran cold. There was only one person Lance knew who had such a ferocious and barbarous shout.

“What…?” Lance breathed.

He immediately began heading for the door as if he were in a trance. The police officers who had led Lance into the room were no longer positioned outside, waiting, but rather, they were all standing outside with the front entrance door opened and ready. Lance didn’t waste a second wondering any longer, he bolted forward and through the opening.

There were crowds of people surrounding two police officers. They were all gasping and calling out to each other with the unbelievable news. “The Ghost Boy!” someone exclaimed.

Lance couldn’t see what was at the centre. Frantically, Lance zeroed in on a woman who was near the edge of the crowd. “–missing for years, I remember!” she said urgently to the people around her.

That was enough. Lance’s breath caught in his throat and he could feel his heart pounding in his ears. Everything felt like it was in slow motion. As Lance scrambled forward, forcing himself through the throngs of people to the centre, his body screamed at him in the form of adrenaline, forcing him forward. It felt like swimming molasses, but Lance just pushed as hard as he could. His body was shaking with a well of emotions that he couldn’t even describe. Disbelief rang clear in his chest, however.

“Let go of me! I haven’t done anything!” that familiar voice screamed again. It conjured tears to Lance’s eyes.

“Stand back!” one of the officers hollered. As everyone took a couple fearful steps backwards, Lance finally, after what felt like forever, broke through to the other end of the crowd.

That was it. Lance could very clearly see who it was then. There, in handcuffs, being led to the station by the police, was the boy he was in love with. Keith. The boy who was dead.

Lance’s legs halted instantly. His arms dropped to his sides. His breath trapped itself in his throat, causing him to choke on the effort of breathing. Weak, he was so weak.

Keith calmed, no longer fighting the officer who was dragging him through the town. His eyes widened and his mouth parted on words that weren’t there. He was alive. He was so alive. And he was even more beautiful in person, in a body, than he ever had been as a ghost. Even with his hair half-falling in his face and sweat shimmering on his skin and a look of pure fear and regret on his face, Lance still couldn’t help the way that his heart leaped at the sight of him.

“Lance, I can explain…” he breathed. His voice was just the right amount of gravelly and smooth that Lance’s heart wept a little. It was so much better than whenever he spoke as a ghost and it felt like a wind tickling at Lance’s ear, near but yet, somehow, miles away.

Lance’s face felt hot and he hiccupped. “You…” Tears began to streak his face. “You were _dead,”_ he forced out. “I _mourned_ you. Oh my god!”

“I know, I’m sorry, but–” Keith began.

“You’re sorry? I thought you didn’t know! I thought you were another _victim!”_

Keith’s face was pained and he struggled against his handcuffs as if he wanted to reach out for Lance. “God, Lance, I never meant– I needed–”

“How did you even do it?!” Lance tossed his hands around bitterly. He was barely aware of how many people were crowding around them, how impatient the police officers detaining Keith were getting, and how ridiculous he looked crying in front of all these people, especially Keith.

Keith opened his mouth to speak, but the officer beat him to it, “Alright, that’s enough. You’ll have time to talk to him later. C’mon, you!” He tugged at Keith, pulling his shoulder backwards and kneeing him in the back of the legs.

Yelping in protest and scowling at the officer over his shoulder as best he could, Keith grumbled, “Yeah, I get it. Ease up, would you?” They marched through the crowds of people again. Everyone parted around the prisoner, letting them pass, as if Keith were being dragged to the gallows for a public execution.

Watching them go, Lance felt himself breaking down. He could feel as the tears began to stream heavier. Lance couldn’t even tell you why he was crying if you asked.

Perhaps it was out of relief that his friend, his confidant, his love, was alive. The boy who wanted to find answers, to be overwhelmed by the world, to help others, was alive. Lionsville’s very own Guardian of Mount Altea was not dead like Lance had thought. That was like a thousand different weights off Lance’s back right there and he didn’t know what to do with the intense tightness squeezing his chest. He wanted to drop himself into the road right there and just shout out in happiness and liberation. After losing so many people he was friends with in his life including the most recent people; Allura and Romelle, it was like finally being able to breathe again when he came face-to-face with Keith. One of the people who had long since been added to the list of those he’d lost, was actually never lost to begin with. It made Lance hope for the future. Not just his future and not just Keith’s future, but even their future together.

At the same time, however, it was life a bucket of cold water on Lance, completely out of nowhere. Keith was alive. Lance had thought that Keith was dead for the longest time and Keith had to have known that, and yet, he never told Lance. That had always been a secret. Keith may very well have never been planning to tell Lance about this. He would never know because the secret had to be forced out of Keith, right there in the middle of the road while the entire town watched. Lance always thought of his relationship with Keith as being one of openness and trust. Sure, Lance had never told Keith the one big secret he had, which was that he knew Keith was dead, but that didn’t matter when it was spun back around on him. Keith _wasn’t_ dead. It made Lance wonder what else Keith was hiding and why he was hiding this and what Lance actually meant to Keith. His mind told him that there was a logical explanation for why Keith hadn’t told him, but his heart told him that it really didn’t matter either way, because at the end of the day, Keith was alive.

That phrase kept replaying in Lance’s mind, over and over. He couldn’t hardly focus on anything else, in fact. Every thought he had was almost entirely overshadowed by just a string of disbelieving ‘Keith is alive’ mantras.

“Wow,” Hunk’s voice broke Lance out of his thoughts, “I can’t believe that he was living up there this whole time.”

“I can’t believe he killed those girls,” Pidge offered.

Lance instantly whirled around to face the girl. “He didn’t!” Lance all but shouted at her.

She startled back, visibly shocked at Lance’s outburst. Hunk also stared at his friend, wide-eyed and unprepared for the reaction. “Whoa, okay, sorry… I take it back, then…” she retracted her statement.

Lance rubbed his hand over his face, spreading his tears around in the process. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you…”

“What’s wrong, dude? We saw you yelling at him… Did you know him?” Hunk asked. He stepped forward, radiating comfort as he usually did.

“Yeah… At least, I thought I did…” He left it at that, offering nothing more, even as his friends continued to be confused on the matter. They thought they had questions? They had no idea the kind of queries that were racing around in Lance’s mind at that very moment.

In fact, there was still that one very large question that Lance was having trouble letting go of, the most prominent of them all; how? Keith had been dead. He had been dead in Lance’s eyes for two entire years. How could he have done that? Lance blinked. There was really only one way that Keith would be able to die without dying and that was if he had some sort of ability the same way that Lance did. He thought back to Keith’s status as the Ghost Boy of Lionsville.

There was one thing that Lance knew for certain though, even with all the uncertainties and twists that were being thrown at him; Keith did not kill those girls. Keith was not the killer. Not only would Keith had been too young to be the killer when they first started, but he’d also lost his mother to the killer, and his desire to protect that mountain was realer and rawer than any dedication the people of that town would ever be able to comprehend. Keith had more love and compassion for others in his ghostly pinkie than the rest of the town had in their full, real life bodies. Lance knew that without a second thought in his mind and he would prove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's almost time for my break and I've never been more thrilled!!


	15. Tibia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday, I hung out with my friend and her friends and it was a good time. One of them did my makeup, one of them bicep curled me, one of them petted my hair. It made me less sad about the fact I _failed my math midterm, what's good???_  
>  That's my life update, carry on with the story now!

Lance didn’t have much of plan of how he was going to go about this new information. There was the entire situation with Keith being alive, but there was also the entire situation with the fact that Lance still had his bloody knife and he could potentially be arrested. Keith could be arrested too, that was another situation that Lance realized was very plausible. So, rather than go home, Lance decided that he would wait until they released Keith from custody so that Lance could speak to him and they could work out a plan of attack for the trouble they were both no doubt about to be in.

Sitting outside the police station, on the edge of a huge planter filled with various types of blooming flowers, Lance waited. There were a number of people who were also hovering around outside with Lance, some even approaching him to ask if he was okay or how he knew ‘The Ghost Boy.’ Lance shrugged everyone off, though. He wasn’t in the mood to be questioned and he most certainly wasn’t going to tolerate people slandering Keith’s name, especially when he wasn’t sure what his stance on Keith was anymore. After an hour or so, most of the pestering townspeople had resolved that they had better things to do than to watch Lance watch the police station and they had buggered off to wherever it was the nosey went.

Pidge and Hunk had stuck with Lance for a good portion of the day too. They had stood around in the blistering sun, pretending that they didn’t have much better things to do. Lance appreciated their support, but he also didn’t want to waste their summer away. He could tell that they were weary of Keith, even if Lance assured them that he was a good person who would never hurt anyone. Keith’s mother was never mentioned, nor was his ghostly ability, of which Lance was still in the dark on himself.

Hunk tried his best to hang out around with the others, but he couldn’t resist stepping into the airconditioned stores every so often for a reprieve. Lance couldn’t blame him. If the seriousness of Keith’s arrest wasn’t so urgent to him, he would have been doing the same. Pidge, although she was melting and complaining the entire time, never bothered to step away and follow Hunk into the stores to get some cool air. She just plunked herself in the dirt underneath one of the overhanging awnings and called it good.

Sometimes, the three of them would play I Spy. Hunk, at one point, decided that they were all going to get heat stroke and had disappeared into a nearby shop to purchase them each a hat. Lance and Pidge were both more than ready to protest when Hunk plopped a wide-brimmed bucket hat on both of their heads. Lance jokingly griped that it would mess up his hair, but if one looked under the laughter, they’d see that he really was just looking for a distraction from the worry that ebbed away at his motivation and energy every minute that Keith didn’t exit the police station. Pidge just hated looking like a goofy safari explorer.

Amongst all the hours of nothing, there was a brief moment in which Shiro had come rushing up to the police station, his work clothes still on as if he couldn’t have gotten over there fast enough. They never made eye contact, but Lance could see the raw panic in his eyes as he shoved the door open and bustled inside. There was a lot of shouting on the other side of the wall. The trio had watched through the window as Shiro gestured wildly and tried to shove past Sheriff Zarkon, only to be forced back and spoken to with a quiet hiss. Shiro had a lot to say, it seemed, because he would not let it go. It was up in the air on how the interaction would end as Shiro got increasingly angry, but eventually, Shiro’s shoulders dropped and he huffed once before spinning on his heel and marching straight back out of the station. Once more, he didn’t bother to look at Lance, he just strode back the way he had come. Hunk, Pidge, and Lance shared a look.

Around three hours before it got dark, Hunk told his friends that he was expected to return home to make dinner for his family. Lance understood. He wished his friend a goodnight and pretended he didn’t notice the unease in the other boy’s eyes as he wished Lance a goodnight right back. “Don’t stay out here too late…” Hunk had added. Lance had just waved.

Pidge didn’t stay much longer either. One hour before it got dark, around the time when the sky was just starting to tint a foreboding shade of purple, Pidge looked up from her phone, still seated in the dirt with her safari hat on. She quirked her lip to the side awkwardly as she piped up to let Lance know that she had to get going. Her parents didn’t want her out while it was dark, especially when they still hadn’t absolutely caught the killer yet. “I’m just his type, after all,” she had laughed humourlessly. Lance’s stomach flipped when she said that, but he wished her a goodnight and asked that she be safe. There was something haunting about the way she stared him in the eyes and wished the same before trailing off down the road towards her house.

And then there was one. Lance sat alone on the planter, watching the sun disappear slowly over the distance horizon between the buildings. Shadows littered the path, menacing and chiding in the way they stood guard around Lance. The buildings suddenly felt like they were encasing Lance instead of offering comfort. There were no people on the trails that would indicate the town was anything other than a ghost town, and somehow, that analogy was eerily accurate. Even a good number of the police officers had returned home, but Keith hadn’t left in the all the time that Lance had been sitting there. The night air was beginning to chill him to the bone.

His eyes were drawn back to the mountain, now empty except for the souls of the dead. Somehow, when Keith wasn’t there to protect it and watch over it, the entire entity that was the mountain loomed a little farther over the town. Lance shivered as he watched it. Like a beast that wasn’t kept tame by its master, the mountain glared at Lance with hawk-like focus.

The door to the police station opened and creaked on its hinges. Lance whipped around, partially startled and partially ready to see Keith again. It wasn’t Keith. Stood at the door, the same serious and worn-out look on his face as always, was Detective Galra carrying his briefcase. His eyes zeroed in on Lance, who had abruptly launched himself off the planter in preparation for seeing Keith. Disappointed, Lance awkwardly returned to his place on the edge of the planter.

Lotor glanced around at the empty streets before approaching Lance. “You must have been waiting here a long time,” he said. The buildings took his voice and ran with it, echoing it off the large, ominous walls.

“Keith is my friend,” Lance scowled. “When is he leaving?”

Lotor sighed, “He’s being detained for now.”

“You can’t do that unless you’re charging him,” Lance countered.

“Actually, as a suspect, we can detain him for forty-eight hours.” Before Lance could say anything more, he was already moving onto the next order of business. He seemed like the type to always be moving on, moving on, moving on, never staying on one subject for longer than was necessary. “I’m actually glad you’re still here. I asked some officers to come collect the knife from you, but, apparently, they felt that could wait until morning. Would you mind handing it over to me now?”

His eyes drilled into Lance, all but forcing him to agree, “Yeah, but it’s at my house.”

“Then, let’s get going.” With that, he began striding down the dirt trail of the town, leaving Lance no time to fully process that they were heading out right away. He leaped up once more and hobbled after the detective. His limbs were so stiff from not moving for so long and he winced, stretching them out while limping along. “You look like you have a question,” Lotor called back.

Lance, finally falling in step beside him, nodded and cleared his throat. “What’s going to happen to Keith?”

“Well, if we find that there isn’t enough evidence to keep him or new evidence that doesn’t line up comes to light, he’ll be let go. If the evidence fits or we get a confession, then the decision will be made and Mr. Kogane will be made to stand trial,” Lotor told him coolly, as if none of it had any bearing on his life, because it really didn’t.

Lance, however, his entire life would be different if Keith were arrested for crimes he didn’t commit. “You’re going to find that evidence though, right? The evidence to clear him.”

Lotor didn’t speak, adjusting his hair with one of his perfectly manicured hands and staring off down the road, into the distance. “Listen, I know this is hard, but it’s really not looking good for Mr. Kogane. This is a tragedy for everyone. Crimes like this don’t just affect the victims and the families, they affect the entire town, surrounding towns, they affect the country. If Keith is found guilty, justice will be delivered.”

“Keith didn’t do it. No matter what you think the evidence says and no matter what you do or don’t find, I promise you that Keith is innocent,” Lance argued vehemently. “Keith loves the people of this town and he loves that mountain. You don’t know him like I do. He would give his life for the people of this town in a heartbeat. All he’s ever wanted is to help people and if it was him, I would have… I would have–”

Lance was instantly hushed as Lotor raised a hand and paused walking. _“Known?”_ he finished for Lance.

Defiantly, Lance confirmed, “Yes, I would have _known_ if it were Keith.”

“Up until today, you thought he was dead,” Lotor countered. He continued walking.

Lance sputtered, “Yeah, well, that doesn’t change what I said!”

The detective nodded. They were coming up to the edge of town, the dirt road that led to Mount Altea as well as Lance’s house was just coming into view. “Because you love him.”

At that, Lance nearly tripped in the dust. Regaining himself quickly, Lance looked away, attempting to hide the brilliant red blush that was quickly overtaking his skin and heating up his face. Was he that obvious? Could Keith tell? That wasn’t important. He indignantly turned back to the other man, who was now smirking to himself once more. “No!”

“No?” The eyebrow raised and the smirk widened.

“That’s not why I’m defending him,” Lance continued. His face was just as on fire as it was before. For some reason, the comment made Lance remember the fact that he had nearly kissed Keith, which brought with it the helpful little idea that Keith wasn’t dead so they could try again. Lance quelled that thought as best he could, but it was a strong one.

Lotor chuckled minutely, “Right. You love him but that’s not why you’re defending him.”

Realization dawned on Lance then. He had walked himself right into admitting to his love for Keith. The words died on his tongue and he breathed out heavily. “Okay, maybe, but Keith really didn’t do this, I swear. I just… have a _feeling.”_

“A _feeling?”_ Lotor repeated. “You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that before; people who have a _feeling,_ who just _know_ that someone didn’t do it because they _would never_ and they’re _good people_ with _big hearts._ That’s the thing though. If killers were obvious, they wouldn’t get away with killing girls on a mountain in a small town for years. You can never really _know_ someone.”

When Lance glanced over at him, there was a strange look in his eyes. Lance squinted at him suspiciously. It was as if he was eased by the words he was saying. “You… You don’t think Keith did it…” Lance realized.

Lotor’s smile widened, a genuine one this time that held no hint of a tease. He tilted his head as he walked to meet Lance’s eyes before turning back to the mountain. “Do I think that boy started all of this? No, of course not. That’s ludicrous. Do I think he even has a tie to these killings at all, no matter how loosely? No, I don’t. I’ve looked into the eyes of people who had mercilessly killed kids before. I’ve spoken with the most deprived humans from all over the country who have done unspeakable things. You couldn’t imagine the evils that lurk within people.”

“…But…?” Lance urged.

“But, Mr. Kogane, I believe that he is everything you described him as. He was a snarky son of a bitch and he had a real attitude problem. That scowl he has really doesn’t help him any either,” Lotor rolled his eyes, “but once I got him talking, I could see what you were saying. Let’s just say it’s my own _feeling.”_

Lance breathed out a sigh of relief that somehow slowly turned into a laugh. “You can let him go then, right?”

At that, Lotor’s smile disappeared. “Well, it’s not that easy. I still have to look into every angle and investigate the knife situation. Until there’s someone who can fill his place better or another girl is murdered, it’s really not looking good for Mr. Kogane. What I fear most is that people will become complacent and they’ll drop their guards if they think we’ve caught the killer before all the facts are out there. The killer may think they’re invincible. This may not be over.”

They turned to walk up Lance’s driveway, passing the fence post where Keith used to sit in wait. Lance frowned, doing his best to ignore the sadness that welled within him. “Why? Why would someone keep doing this?”

“There are many reasons, Mr. McClain. The human mind is a treacherous place prone to evils of all kinds. Why this person in particular is killing, I can’t tell you the reason why because I don’t know it, but I have a sinking suspicion that the reason is no more complicated than that he enjoys what he does to those girls.” He stared up at the sky, lost in thought.

Shuddering, Lance grimaced at the ground. “That’s sick…”

“Humans can be sick,” Lotor agreed. “At any rate, Mr. Kogane is probably much safer in police custody than on the mountain, so you can rest assured of that. And you, Mr. McClain, I recommend you steer clear of the mountain yourself. We’re far from being out of the woods yet, so to speak.” They stopped at Lance’s front door. His lights were on and his mother and sister were probably inside awaiting Lance’s arrival. “Why don’t we go get that knife, then?” Lotor suggested. He gestured towards Lance’s house.

“Oh, yeah,” Lance replied, lost in thought. He stared up at the mountain one last time and prayed that no one would go missing while he slept. The mountain had never been safe, but it was even less safe when the Lion of the Mountain, the Guardian of Mount Altea, the Ghost Boy himself, wasn’t there to watch. People did their worst when they thought no one was watching, after all.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

The following day came slowly. Getting to sleep felt like watching paint dry, but eventually, Lance managed it. His sleep was restless and choppy, but he got through the night. When he got to town in the morning, he was beyond relieved to find that there wasn’t a single person in the entire town who hadn’t made it through the night. No more murders. Lance hadn’t expected any, but he was at a point where everything felt like it was leading up to some kind of terrible news.

Whatever the case, Lance didn’t spend too much time dwelling on it, especially when he had somewhere to be. The crowds around the police station weren’t as bad as the day before when they had dragged Keith in there, but they weren’t toned down enough that Lance could easily wander around without being noticed. So, the moment that Lance entered town, bright and early, he completely avoided the crowds by dropping off down an alleyway. He followed it around the buildings to the back, where no one bothered to search for boys on missions.

The police station, luckily, was made of windows. Somehow, Lance felt like that was unsafe, but he wasn’t in the business of being picky with how the structures were being built. The windows were needed in his plan anyway, so being judgemental wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Lance trailed along behind a fabric shop that stood next to the station and peered around the corner.

“Is he the killer?” someone was asking in the streets.

“Ghost Boy? Probably,” someone else scoffed. “He’s been off his rocker since he was young. That’s what happens with those teen pregnancy kids, you know.”

“I’m just glad they caught the son of a bitch,” a gruff voice spoke up.

Another male voice jumped in, “Me too. I knew it wasn’t someone from town. We raise good people here in Lionsville.”

Lance’s jaw set and he glared into the space between the police station and the fabric shop, doing his best to ignore those comments. They had no right to say those things about Keith, but Lance had more pressing matters to attend to at that moment in time.

Rather than reveal himself, Lance ducked behind some boxes that were set out within the space between the two buildings. He shuffled along in his crouched position. “Mission impossible,” Lance muttered to himself as he crossed the space separating his hiding space and where he needed to be. He chuckled triumphantly and bounced back up onto his feet.

There were a number of windows on the back of the police station. Lance wasn’t sure which one – if any – would lead to Keith’s holding cell, but he wasn’t perturbed by this fact. He snuck along the side, pausing before the first window. Carefully, with extreme precision, Lance poked just his nose past the edge of the window, his eyes trailing along until he could see into the room on the other side. It was an office. There was no one in it, thankfully, but Lance didn’t chance it. He ducked down out of sight and determinedly scooted along the underneath of the window in search of Keith once more.

As Lance came to the next window, he whispered, “Please, be Keith, not Zarkon.”

Lance somehow lucked out and didn’t at the same time. When he jutted his forehead into the view of the window, Zarkon was there, seated in a rolling chair. His back was to Lance, thankfully. The good news, however, was that he sitting on his rolling chair so he could stare through the jail bars that kept the young, black-haired boy locked up in the cinderblock room. They mirrored each other, their arms crossed over their chests. Even their expressions were the same. Well, Lance was kind of guessing on that one. Keith, sat on the tiny metal bed, was glowering, and while he couldn’t see the sheriff’s face, it was always in a glower and Lance didn’t think a murder suspect would cure that.

The police officers of Lionsville really should have invested in better, more soundproof windows, because Lance could hear every word of what was said.

“I told you already, I lost the knife in the woods two years ago. I used it for a lot of things,” Keith was explaining, rather bitterly, to the sheriff.

“Like stabbing young girls,” Zarkon drily said.

Keith’s glower intensified. _“No,_ I live in the woods. I use the knife for survival. I dropped it into the waterfall. Thought I’d never see it again, actually.”

“Right, so, maybe you can answer this question for me;” Zarkon answered, shuffling forward in his seat, “why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re bad at your job and take everything at face value?” Keith quipped back, a salty little smile thrown onto the end for good measure.

Zarkon, quick to become enraged, rolled his chair closer. “You have a real attitude problem. Especially considering the situation you’re in. We found your knife at the scene of the crime with blood on it, do you get that? Your fingerprints were on it.”

Keith sat up too, throwing his hands out to the side as he barked back, “It’s _my_ knife! I told you that! Of course, my fingerprints would be on it, it _belongs_ to me! I lost it! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Why would I use my own knife in a murder and then _leave it there?_ That’s just about the stupidest thing I could do!”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it,” Zarkon replied.

Keith’s eyes darkened at the insult. He opened his mouth and leaned forward. There was one thing that all the police officers were right about; Keith didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. It had always been that way with him though. He was a lit fuse, a loose cannon. Lance loved that about him. Except, right now, Lance wasn’t loving it so much. “You know what? I–” Lance immediately threw himself up, waving his arms around wildly behind Sheriff Zarkon’s head to get Keith’s attention. It worked. He paused, one finger in the air before him, primed for a stern comeback. His eyes widened and then flicked back to the officer quickly to avoid suspicion.

“Yeah?” Zarkon prompted.

Keith had an incredulous expression on his face, but he rapidly recovered. “I am narcoleptic.”

That threw the sheriff off. “What?” he blurted out.

“And I feel an attack coming on,” Keith continued. Immediately after Keith was finished speaking, he collapsed forward, his entire upper body curling in on himself and down between his knees. No longer able to support itself, his body tumbled off the metal bed and dropped to the cement flooring like a sack of potatoes.

Zarkon leaped up, alarmed at the sudden folding of his key suspect. Unsure of what to do, he stepped towards the cell to inspect whether or not Keith had really fallen asleep.

The thing was, Keith hadn’t fallen asleep at all. No one else could see it happen, but Lance could. He watched, amazed, as Keith’s body became lifeless and crumpled to the ground, meanwhile, Keith’s spirit swiftly exited the vessel. Translucent, ghost Keith stood there, his hands on his hips as he watched his body fall as well. Then, he turned his attention to Zarkon, who was peering through the gaps in the bars and calling out to Keith to stop messing around because he didn’t have time. Keith raised his hand and flipped Zarkon off, his eyebrows furrowed in anger. Then, all at once, Keith ghost disappeared from the jail cell altogether.

“Hey,” Keith’s whispering voice echoed.

Lance startled back from the window, eyes wide as he came face-to-face with the spirit of Keith. “Whoa,” Lance breathed.

“I’m alive… Surprise,” Keith greeted, punctuating it with an out of place and barely-genuine smile.

“I’m still mad at you for lying to me,” Lance told him.

Keith grinded his teeth once. “I didn’t lie about anything.”

“Okay, fine, I’m mad at you for not telling me about this, but first, you really have to explain what this is…” He gestured to Keith’s ghost form before shifting his gesturing towards the window where Zarkon was still struggling with what to do when a suspect passed out cold.

“Yeah, about that,” Keith’s hand made its way up to his neck, massaging it nervously. “In the same way that you’re a Veil Seer, I’m a Veil Walker.”

Lance squinted in confusion. “A veil, what? I’ve never heard of that.”

“When you see ghosts and feel ghost presences, you’re seeing into the ghost realm, but I can cross over into it. I leave my body, like you just saw,” Keith directed Lance’s attention to the window again. “I don’t know if it has a real name or if you call it something else, but my family always called it Veil Walking. Of course, narcolepsy is what the doctors liked to say, but they didn’t get all the details.”

Lance stared at him in disbelief, taking in every word that Keith told him and pursing his lips. “And you never told me…”

There was a beat of silence as their eyes met. Lance could see the remorse there, but he waited for the words. “You don’t get it,” Keith finally uttered, his face scrunching up in pain.

“I don’t… I don’t get, what?” Lance balked.

Keith shifted around uncomfortably, looking anywhere except at Lance. He stepped backwards, then forwards again, as if he couldn’t sit still in the middle of such a vulnerable conversation. “You see ghosts all the time,” Keith began. “You can see Coran, Florona, Klaizap, Melenor, Bob, Chip, Laika, and dozens of dogs and cats, just to name a few. There are countless restless spirits in this town alone. Fuck knows how many spirits you’ve come across in your entire life.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Sighing, Keith continued, “You don’t have to interact with the dead. It’s not as if they’d notice since everyone ignores them anyway. Just because you can see them doesn’t mean you suddenly owe them something, because you don’t. Every time, without fail, you give dead people the time of day and you help them. I don’t think you realize how much you help them, how much you help me. That’s what you do.”

“So, you lied to me because I help you…?” Lance incredulously repeated back.

“You’re still not getting it!” Keith huffed.

“Explain it better!” Lance shot back.

Keith collected himself. He took in a deep breath before trying once more. “I’m just another ghost!”

“You’re– Huh?” Lance sputtered.

“You talk to so many people and you help so many people but it’s not necessarily because you want to be their friend. I’m not saying you don’t want any of the people you see to have their lives again, because I know you do, but you’re not expecting any of them to come back to life.”

At that, Lance’s face became one of disgust and he stepped back. “What are you saying?” he spat.

With a desperate sort of sadness, Keith clenched his fists and unclenched them, waving his hands around sporadically in an attempt to illustrate what he was saying. “You tell me everything! When you’re sad, you pour your heart out to me. When you’re happy, you tell me every detail about it. When you need someone, you come to me first.” Keith stabbed his fingers into his own chest at the end of every sentence to punctuate his words. “You tell me things that you’d never tell anyone else. Not Veronica, not Pidge, not Hunk, no one. I trust you with everything too. Call me crazy, but I think you only told me those things because it couldn’t come back to bite you that way. Dead men tell no tales, after all.”

“You… you think I only ever told you anything because I thought you were dead…?” Lance couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Keith shrugged in a way that answered Lance’s question clearly and self-deprecatingly. “I’m just saying, I don’t ever want to lose that with you. Telling you or not telling you, either way I lose your trust, Lance,” he finished. His hands dropped to his sides, noiselessly hitting his thighs.

“Keith… That’s so wrong,” Lance stepped forward as he debunked any horrible thoughts Keith was having.

“Yeah… Well…” Keith muttered, turning away.

Lance didn’t let him, moving into his personal space with determination. “No, I mean, _you’re_ wrong. I don’t just talk to you because you’re a ghost, and that’s never been the reason. I talk to you because you’re a good listener and you offer good advice. I talk to you because you’re funny and you always have something interesting to say. You’re genuine and you care so much, not just about me but about everyone. You have such strong dreams, goals, passions, and beliefs. I’ve never met anyone who has as much raw energy to give to others as you, and I lo–” Lance wheezed, immediately losing all momentum.

Keith was staring at him with wide eyes, waiting for him to finish his sentence. “What was that last part?” Keith asked.

Yeah, Lance was also asking himself what that last part was. What was he doing? He almost just admitted that he was in love with Keith out loud to Keith’s face. Wow. “I… I like being your friend and I couldn’t be happier that you’re actually alive. Good chat,” he rushed out. His face was on fire and he suddenly couldn’t remember ever being angry at Keith at all. He instantly faced the window again, hands on his hips to hide how awkward and exposed he suddenly felt.

“Were you… about to say…?” Keith provoked.

Lance whipped around to face the shell-shocked Keith. “No,” he combated. “I was saying that you’re my best friend, and I never thought of you as ‘just another ghost,’ and if you were actually dead, I’d be devasted, and I…”

And that was when it hit him. Suddenly, all at once, like it hadn’t fully occurred to him until that moment. Keith had been dead. Sure, he had gone through this in his mind a thousand times since Keith’s arrest, but this was serious. He’d taken for granted what it really meant for someone to be dead since he could see them anyway, but Lance really had this opportunity in front of him, like Keith had been resurrected just so they could accomplish their goals side-by-side.

Keith, beautiful, stunning, headstrong Keith. He was there and he was alive. They had a real shot together. It was ridiculous to pretend like secrecy mattered, not when Keith meant as much to Lance as he did.

Lance’s arms dropped and he felt all the fight within him leave as he stared into Keith’s hopeful eyes. He was so expressive. “I was, yeah. I was about to say that I… I love you, Keith…” His heart thudded in his chest. Heat swarmed to his cheeks, leaving the rest of his body stone-cold and petrified by the thought of rejection. He swallowed the excess saliva in his mouth, desperately hoping that Keith would say something soon so they wouldn’t continue to stand there in silence.

“I love you too…” Keith whispered into the silence between them.

There was another beat of just staring and breathing.

“Yeah?” Lance choked out.

“Yeah,” Keith sputtered back.

They continued to stand there clumsily, each navigating their own stirred up and new emotions. It was as if they were in a trance fueled by pure adoration for the other.

“So, are we–” Lance began to say something, but he was immediately cut off by the shouting from inside the police station.

“Is someone out there?!” Sheriff Zarkon hollered, approaching the window. His fat fingers fiddled unsuccessfully with the lock.

Lance squeaked in fear and all but tossed himself into the pavement under the window. Keith’s ghost form dropped into a defensive stance. They both looked to each other fearfully. Then, Keith dispersed like a cloud of smoke, the worlds greatest magic trick, entirely gone. “Sure, leave me here…” Lance grumbled under his breath.

The window opened. Zarkon was clambering to stick his head out into the fresh morning air. Suddenly, from inside the jail cell, there was a yell. Zarkon startled, nearly slamming his entire head into the window frame. Even Lance jumped from where he was huddled on the ground. “Holy shit!” It was Keith.

“You’re awake! What are you screaming for?!” Zarkon hollered, marching away from the window.

“Sorry, sometimes I come back a little disorientated,” Keith explained away. Lance could practically hear the ghost boy shrugging, even as he began crawling away from the police station altogether. “I guess I was having a dream. Must have been pretty intense.”

As Lance raced away from the police station, he got the sense that the police had their hands full with Keith. He wasn’t sure if that was good for the murder investigation or not, but it made Lance’s heart laugh with glee. Keith loved him. Lance giggled to himself like a school girl, forgetting all about the worries he had before now that they were dispelled.


	16. Phalanges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who drank for the first time??? It was me, and I ate a plastic spoon.

The town was bustling by midday and Lance had been hunting for his friends for a little over half an hour. He wasn’t exactly sure where he could go from that point since Keith was in holding and his friends had no idea what was really going on, but he felt like he couldn’t just sit around doing nothing.

He could go to the mountain and hunt around for more clues. That meant going up the mountain, though. When he was one his own, even in the broad daylight, it wasn’t safe. Bringing his friends was dangerous too, Lance wouldn’t risk that. Keith could come with him, but if anything happened, it would just look like Lance hiding evidence again or tampering. People would question it. He could search for any ghosts of the girls who had gone missing or were murdered. That hadn’t worked the thousand others times he had tried it, but maybe this time it would…? He could talk to Shiro about Keith and the situation with Keith’s mother’s death. That seemed insensitive though. Shiro was surely dealing with enough. All in all, Lance didn’t have a course of action.

That was why Lance was on his way around the town to find his friends and to think up a plan. He needed to regroup.

As he wandered through the streets, he passed many different people, none of which weren’t discussing the recent events. There was scarcely anything else on anyone’s mind after all the had happened. It seemed that no matter where Lance went, he wasn’t able to escape the whispering and nattering of people around him. They spoke about the murders, they spoke about Keith, they spoke about Lance himself. It put Lance on edge, especially when he knew that the people of Lionsville were so desperate for an explanation, a person to put behind bars for such horrendous crimes, that they were willing to accept the very first person who stumbled into police custody, evidence or no evidence. Keith’s name was being slandered all over the place because everyone believed it was him. The killer was probably somewhere amongst those groups of people, shaking his head and clicking his tongue disapprovingly while he spouted about what a monster that boy was. The same boy whose mother he murdered. Lance’s body practically vibrated with anger.

That was when Lance noticed it. Around the ice cream parlor, surrounded by a small crowd of people, was Adam. That in itself wasn’t completely strange or out of the ordinary. Adam was a fairly popular guy around the area. What made it odd, however, was the fact that Pidge was there, a dead look in her eyes as she listened to Adam drone on about whatever he was saying. Pidge rarely stayed in one place too long if she was bored, unless there was a reason to. Upon closer inspection, Lance could see that there was a hand snaked around her shoulders, locking her in place. Her brother had a strong hold on her, barely letting her even breathe with how tightly he was attached. He was intensely focused on Adam, eyebrows pulled downwards in irritation just like the rest of the small crowd.

Adam’s voice came into earshot as Lance curiously wandered closer. “It was _in_ the grave. There was blood all over it. It must have been hidden in the dirt somewhere because the police hadn’t found it on the first sweep through. I could feel in my gut that we were missing something, so I went back, and that was when I saw– Lance!” Adam’s eyes widened in surprise and everyone who had been listening suddenly turned to stare at him.

“What are you doing?” Lance asked cautiously, slowing his steps.

“They wanted to know about the knife. You know, the one you were hiding,” he snarked, “because you’re protecting a murderer.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “He’s not a murderer. I know it was wrong to take the knife like that, but it doesn’t mean that Keith did it.”

“It was probably both of you together,” one of the older women in the crowd snapped at him. Everyone was glaring at him with disgust and rage, although none of them said anything or did anything. Pidge was staring at Lance with sympathetic eyes but she didn’t say anything, lest her glowering brother decide that Pidge wasn’t allowed to hang out with Lance ever again.

“It’s no matter,” Adam interrupted. “I’m still going to testify as a witness at the trial.”

Lance’s world seemed to freeze. His mouth was dry as he opened it to speak, “What, what trial?” His heart crushed itself on every laboured beat.

“Didn’t you hear? They’ve officially arrested Keith. This is going to court now,” Adam told him, genuinely surprised that Lance didn’t know.

Taking a step back, Lance attempted to breathe again. His lungs constricted on nothing. Lance felt like he was choking. He’d been speaking to Keith only a few hours ago, they couldn’t have arrested him yet, they couldn’t have set a court date or anything. The nearest courthouse was in Daibazaal, that wasn’t possible. He spoke as clearly as he was able while he was struggling not to hyperventilate, “No, they can’t do that. Court? Keith? No, they don’t have any evidence, they don’t have anything, Keith didn’t do this,” he blabbered. “Why are you a witness? You haven’t witnessed anything!” Lance hollered advancing on Adam. Everyone backed up as they watched Lance practically come undone, pointing his finger accusingly at Adam as if it was all his fault.

“Because I was there when the knife was found. You’ll be testifying too, Lance, don’t think you won’t. You stole evidence,” Adam calmly stated. There was an edge to his voice, nearly a threat. “Dr. Holgersson and Sheriff Zarkon will probably find you sometime today to tell you all about it.”

Lance cursed the fact that Adam was just taller than him, barely at all, but still noticeable enough. It was also very noticeable how much Adam worked out in comparison to Lance. At that point, the only thing fuelling Lance was the pit of emotions that he couldn’t even begin to untangle from one another.

There was nothing that Lance could even do. It wasn’t like he could tell everyone about his abilities or about Keith’s abilities. That was ridiculous. He couldn’t even prove it if given the chance. Maybe Keith could, but how would that help him? It would be Lance, sitting up there on the stand, giving his raw account of what happened, completely divorced from the world of ghosts and feelings, and he would have no chance in hell of making it out of there alive. They would arrest Keith and toss him in jail. They might even arrest Lance himself. Worse yet, the killer would still be somewhere in town. There was no time anymore, this was all happening, this was reality.

“This is all your fault,” Matt spoke up from where he was clutching his sister.

Lance turned to him, taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“If you had just turned in the knife sooner, the arrest would have been made and maybe Allura wouldn’t be dead!” he argued.

“Matt!” Pidge hollered, disbelief in her face. She attempted to pull away from him but he just shoved her back and behind him, out of the way.

Lance seethed, “How fucking dare you! What the fuck do you know about anything?! You’re all ready to throw the first person you see under the bus! Keith didn’t do anything! Keith cares so much for this town and he did everything he fucking could to protect that mountain! You don’t understand a damn thing, Matt, so shut the fuck up!”

He wanted to cry. All the times that Lance had been telling himself that Allura’s death was his fault, all the time that Keith had been telling himself that Allura’s death was his fault, it wasn’t a joke. There probably wasn’t a single person in all of Lionsville who wasn’t asking themselves what they could have done differently, but to have that thrown back in Lance’s face with the added implication that Lance and Keith had been the ones to physically take her life away, that was too much, that was too far.

“I don’t understand a thing?!” Matt spat. His eyes blazed. “I understand, alright! You’re so brainwashed by the ghost kid that you can’t even see what’s right in front of you! Just because he has you fooled, doesn’t mean he has the rest of us, too, Lance! He doesn’t protect a damn thing, he’s harmful to this town! He always has been!”

“You don’t even know him!” Lance hollered, voice cracking.

“And I don’t want to! I can’t believe you’ve been putting my sister in danger all this time! Fuck, I should kill you myself!”

Pidge gaped at her brother, “Matt, holy shit, stop!”

“What, was Keith waiting for her to get a little older?! Is that it, Lance?”

Lance’s entire body felt like it was made of flames and he moved forward, seeing red. He was fully prepared to hit Matt, his fists already forming. Someone grabbed at his arm, yanking him away. “You bastard!” Lance shrieked. “Keith would die for this town!” Adam was hooking the undersides of Lance’s armpits, keeping him from fighting Matt. There was a giant crowd that had formed around the two of them as they quarrelled. Lance was too enraged to think about what he looked like to them.

“Let him,” Matt hissed, still blocking his sister, who as beating on his arm by that point.

Lance kicked and struggled in Adam’s hold. He could barely hear the words that Matt said through all the screaming in his head and the pounding of his heart in his chest. It rattled his bones furiously. There was sweat dripping down his forehead from how much he had worked himself up. Lance let out a frustrated shout at Matt, as if it would do anything. Matt just glared at him.

“Open your eyes, Lance. Keith’s a killer,” Matt finalized. He gripped Pidge’s arm, digging his fingers into her skin. She squawked at him to let her go, crowbarring her own arm out of his hold, but it didn’t work. Matt just tugged her along down the dirt road as quickly as he could. They left Lance there, still being restrained by Adam.

Once they were gone, Adam slowly released Lance, letting him regain himself. The rage was very much still present in his chest and it hurt with all the punching it was doing, urging him to hunt Matt down and give him a piece of his mind. Still, Lance forced himself to stand there, staring into the distance. It was so hard to calm down. Lance bent his knees, sinking into a crouch and tangling his fingers into his hair. The people who had been watching the entire ordeal began to disperse, whispering amongst themselves. Perfect, another thing for the town to gossip over, just what Lance and Keith needed right about then.

“I know you’re friends with Keith, but you should be glad that we stopped him before he could hurt someone else. The town will be much safer now,” Adam told him. There was a hint of encouragement in his voice. For all that he had against Lance, it seemed, he still could understand when someone else was deeply hurting.

Lance ran his hands down his face and stared up at Adam from his crouched position. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve done,” he muttered.

The town was a lot of things, but safer wasn’t one of them.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Lance fidgeted relentlessly with the buttons on his sleeve. He wasn’t ready for any of this; the suit, the enormous stone building they were entering, the crowds, the silence that seemed to take hold of every person that they passed. Beads of sweat were forming on Lance’s body in every place that sweat could form and his heart only increased in its rapid beating as he watched family after family enter the building ahead of him. Those were the people he had to speak in front of. All of those people. He had to sit on a stand and be berated for his incompetence by some snooty lawyer as he fumbled his way through an explanation that ended with Keith’s freedom instead of his head on a pike. Fuck, Lance was going to throw up.

A hand slithered in between Lance’s fretting fingers and gently pried them away. Lance let the hand curl around his fingers, squeeze once in an effort to tell him to stop picking at his suit, before properly fitting itself. He glanced over at his mother cautiously. She smiled at him reassuringly. It almost made Lance feel like he could breathe again. On his other side, Veronica put her hand on Lance’s shoulder and quickly rubbed it, jarring him out of step a little bit with how rough it was. Lance laughed and turned to her. She was grinning like it was a big game. That was appreciated since Lance felt like he was about to combust at any moment.

At the very least, his family was there with him too. They wouldn’t be on the stand, but if he got too nervous, he could always look for them in the crowd and they would give him a goofy thumbs up to encourage him and ease his mind. Adjusting his hands slightly, Lance properly held his mother’s hand.

They were just reaching the steps of the courthouse and Lance let his head tilt back to stare at the giant stone structure. It was at least three storeys tall and sculpted like a tank. There wasn’t a single part of the entire exterior that Lance could see that looked like it needed touching up or fixing, as if it were brand new. The edges of it were so sharp and menacing, as were the pillars that guarded the front. Lance was reminded of the jail bars that Keith had been held behind when he trailed the looming pillars all the way to the top while passing through them. He swallowed thickly and let his head drop back down. Just in front of the entrance doors, there was a statue of a woman, blinded by a scrap of fabric, with a sword in one hand and a scale in the other. Lady Justice. Daibazaal always felt so unforgiving when compared to Lionsville.

The doors, Lance noticed once he was closer, were guarded by Sheriff Zarkon and Deputy Sendak quite closely. Stood on either side of the entrance like Anubis and Ra holding open the door to Duat, intimidating in the way their heads rotated on a pivot. As Lance passed them, a shiver ran up his spine and he instinctively gripped his mother’s hand rougher.

Once they were inside, Lance tried his best not to panic while inspecting the large room. The ceiling was so much higher than Lance had been anticipating. His confidence wavered again. The top floor balconies where people could sit to watch the trial were absolutely packed. Lance could feel their eyes on him but he couldn’t identify a single person he knew. What did they think of him? Lance furrowed his eyebrows and leaned over to his sister. “Why are there so many people?” he asked quietly, lest his voice echo.

She glanced over to him, surprised at the question. “This case is big news. Most of these people are probably a bunch of rubberneckers, come to gawk. Don’t think about them.”

Lance nodded slowly. “Yeah…”

As they moved to take their seats at the front of the courthouse, Lance glanced around. Across the room, Lance identified Matt and Pidge sitting with their parents, Colleen and Sam. Hunk was next to them with his mother, father, uncle, niece, and nephew. Adam was somewhere around, probably with Shiro, if Lance had to guess. Dr. Holgersson was with his wife. A few other police officers could be seen spread out around the courthouse. Alfor was there, alone. Lance felt so bad for him. He was in such a terrible position. Romelle’s family was there too, her brother, Bandor with tears in his eyes. Lance kept hunting around. Nyma, Rolo, Ms. Te-Osh, Mr. Regris, Mr. Antok, Beezer, Olia, Mr. Slav, Ms. Trigel. There were dozens of people from town that Lance could immediately identify, but there were also dozens of people who Lance had never seen in his life.

Detective Galra was near the front as well. Coincidentally, Lance and his family landed at the open seats next to him. He was the first to enter the benches, followed by his mother and then Veronica. His mother wanted to be able to hold both her children’s hands. Lotor didn’t even acknowledge them as they sat down and Lance couldn’t help but feel betrayed. He was one of the only tools Lance could see having any bearing in whether Keith was thrown in jail or not.

The longer they sat there, waiting anxiously for the trial to start, the more people flooded the courthouse. Every time it looked like people might stop pouring in, Lance was proven wrong once again. There weren’t even enough seats for the all the people who were there. Some of the guests were forced to stand at the back, shoulder-to-shoulder. Lance grimaced and put his fingers to his neck in order to feel his pounding heartrate. He quickly turned back around in his seat. “Where are they all coming from?” Lance muttered.

“All over the country,” Lotor answered.

Lance startled, not really expecting an answer at all.

“Trials like this get a lot of coverage. Everyone knows about this case now. Murders are popular,” Lotor glanced back at the crowds of people, “especially when young girls are involved. I’m sure there are tons more people outside as well. The interest in cases like this never fails to baffle me.” He turned back to the front, shaking his head. “It seems society really never has gotten past its days of having picnics at the public hanging,” he sighed.

Not having a way to respond, Lance began inspecting the front of the house. Two bar dividers stretched from the edge of the jury box to the empty strip between the audience seating. It was low enough to be seen over, but it was very clear that it was there to block off anyone who wasn’t actually a part of the process. The jury box itself was a series of six seats with six more seats behind them. Each was to be filled with a person that Lance had never met before, all presumably unbiased against Keith. Lance felt himself deflate just staring at the jury box. They were going to lock Keith up.

The rest of the courthouse was where all the actual action took place and Lance was dreading it already. There were two desks in front of the dividers. Lance wasn’t sure which was which, but he knew one was for the defense and one was for the prosecution. Both were empty at that moment, but Lance knew that they would shortly be filled, one housing Keith.

Ahead of those desks was the main desk; the judge’s bench. There were a few flags around it and decals in the wall behind it, increasing the authority of it all. On one side of the bench, the court clerk was seated with his computer, ready to build the transcript. He was flanked by the bailiff, watching over everyone with a hawk-eye worse than Zarkon’s. On the other side, there was the witness’s stand. That was where Lance would be. He would have to talk. Lance had that nauseous feeling welling in his stomach and bubbling up his throat again. He ran his hands down his face and shuddered out a breath, attempting to quell his need to vomit.

“Are you nervous?” his mother questioned, leaning over to bump his shoulder with hers.

“Yeah, there are just a lot of people here, and Keith is my friend. This is all so…” he trailed off.

His mother finished for him, “Overwhelming?”

“Exactly,” Lance confirmed. “He could go to jail for something he didn’t do, _mamá,_ and it could all be my fault too.” He grabbed at his neck as his fears were verbalized, somehow confirming them in his nerve-riddled mind.

A hand landed on his hand once more, coaxing it kindly away from where he was digging his nails into his neck. His mother encased his hand in both of hers. “Don’t worry too much, _mijo,_ it will all work out. You’ll do fine. Just tell the truth,” she eased.

“What if the truth makes him look guilty?” Lance questioned.

His mother paused, a little too long for Lance’s comfort and peace of mind. “We just have to believe that justice will win,” his mother cryptically replied, avoiding Lance’s eyes as she squeezed his hand. Lance stared at her for a minute, fears spiking. That wasn’t soothing in the least.

It hit Lance then just how much would change because of this trial, but not just because of the trial, but also because of the actions of one person. These murders would alter everything, touching lives all over the town and the world itself, and Lance knew that whoever was doing it did not care in the least, he maybe even enjoyed how much damage he was doing.

So many girls were dead, all stripped of their abilities to change the world. Alfor was alone, losing everything that he had. Sal’s Diner would never have the airy and happy feel that Allura brought to it, in fact, nowhere in the town would have that same feeling ever again. There would be one less nurse in the world. Romelle, too. She would never be the cause of a revolution like Lance had always known she would. Her family would never get to see their daughter grow up and live a happy life. Keith’s life would also be forever ruined by this. Lance couldn’t even imagine the kind of pain Keith was going through knowing he was about to take the fall for the monster who killed his mother.

“Hey! Kid, look this way!” someone called out. Lance instinctively turned. He was assaulted with a flash of light and an obnoxiously loud clicking sound. The guy was standing there with a camera, proudly grinning over the top of it as he captured another picture of Lance. Why did they want his picture?

Lance’s mother glared at the man and tugged at Lance, pulling him close to her and out of the view of the camera. “Shoo!” she cried.

The man with the camera scurried away, still smiling down at his camera. Next to him, his mother huffed and released her son. Veronica clicked her tongue. “Damn rats,” she muttered under her breath.

There was a loud chiming as the clock on the far well signalled noon and everyone stood. Lance stared at it, his anxiety screaming in his brain and burning the insides of his chest. He was so hot, why was the room so hot? Lance was sweating as he followed suit in standing.

Uneasy, Lance watched as people began filing into the room from one of the doors at the back of the room. The lawyer for the prosecution entered, carrying a large box with him. His assistant followed after him, also carrying a box. After him, the defense attorney entered, along with his own assistant. There was a beat before twelve more people were escorted in by officers. They took their seats in the jury box. Finally, a woman in a long, flowing coat made her entrance. She was flanked by two more officers. Her heels clicked as she stepped up the platform that held the judge’s bench.

Once everything was set, an officer directed everyone to seat themselves again. Lance was grateful for the reprieve because he felt like he was going to tip over if he remained standing for too long.

An intense looking man with a glare that could rival Zarkon’s stepped up to address the room. “Good afternoon,” he greeted. His voice was flat and no-nonsense. “I am Chief Justice Kolivan Blade from Luxite City. We are here today for the trial on two charges of first-degree murder against Keith Yurak Kogane of Lionsville. I would like to remind the witnesses that they are sworn to tell the truth and they will be held to that truth. Audience members should also keep in mind that this is a serious matter in a professional setting and that any acts of disrespect will not be tolerated and will result in removal from this courthouse. Anyone not following the orders of this trial will be found in contempt of court.”

There was a beat of silence before the Chief Justice gestured to the door near the back again. “Bring in the defendant.”

Everyone’s attention turned to the door. One of the bailiffs opened it and an officer escorted in the defendant. Keith. There he was. His hair was tousled, but neatly brushed, as if he had messed it up immediately after fixing it up. That seemed like such a Keith thing to do and Lance was immediately eased by the presence of the boy. He wore a suit, which Lance would be lying if he said didn’t look good. Lance had never seen Keith in a suit, or in any other attire than the black shirt and pants with the red leather jacket that he always wore. The black suit seemed a little bit big on Keith, although not noticeably. It was old too, not just in the material but in the style as well. Lance presumed it belong to his father at one point.

Keith looked up, inspecting the room of people as he entered. His violet eyes locked with Lance’s, jumpstarting Lance’s heart but also his worries. Keith quirked the side of his lip, giving the barest smile to Lance. It was meant to be uplifting, Lance assumed, but it did little to subdue Lance’s apprehension. Somewhere across the room, the flash of a camera went off, forcing Keith’s eyebrows to furrow and his face to turn away from the crowd. He stared dead ahead, giving nothing away with the impassive expression on his face. The room was cold as Keith noiselessly moved across the courthouse to take his seat next to his appointed lawyer.

“Before we begin the trial, the defendant wishes to inform everyone that he is narcoleptic. In the event of his passing out, he’s asked that we give him a moment before resuming the trial,” Chief Justice stated. He stared down at the paper skeptically as he read it, but the medical papers that Keith had to prove it were all there. They were describing a condition he didn’t have, of course, but no one but Lance and Keith knew that.

“Lovely, may we proceed?” the judge requested in a sweet voice. Judge Luxia, Lance believed her name was.

The first to stand and speak was Sheriff Zarkon. He trooped his way up from the rows of audience members to give his account of what the police team of Lionsville had discovered over the course of the last month or so. Everyone quietly listened, morbidly enthralled with the monotone, no-nonsense description of everything that was found. He spoke of Romelle’s bones and how they were uncovered on Mount Altea. Sobs broke out from somewhere in the audience seating when he went on to describe the state she was in and what was learned from her autopsy. Lance guessed it was her family. Zarkon went on to describe Allura and the situation regarding her death. He told of how she was located by Lance himself and at that, everyone turned to stare at the boy. He shrunk in his spot.

The attorney asked Sheriff Zarkon to point out on a map where the bodies were found. That was added to the pile of evidence before the sheriff was asked to recount the knife fiasco from his point of view. He directed his words to the jury, detailing how the knife was found by Lance and Adam, and how Adam came forth to tell them about it while Lance was just trying to protect his friend. Lance could see Keith sigh heavily in his seat as Zarkon droned on about the ownership of the knife, the prints found on the knife, the blood found on the knife. Nothing about it was putting Keith in a good light.

With that, Zarkon concluded his testimony and returned to his seat as instructed. Even as he finished, there wasn’t a single eye that was on him. Everyone was focused on Lance. As if everyone in the room was suddenly hyper aware of Lance’s status as Keith’s friend, probably his only friend, they watched him. Lance really was Keith’s only friend at this point. Not only had Keith been living in the woods in secret for twelve years and not had any other friends aside from Lance, but he was on trial for murder in a room full of people who believed he did it, with people from all over the country also believing he did it. There weren’t going to be many people who were wanting to befriend Keith at that point.

Lance could hear furious typing from different points in the room, like someone was on a laptop, working away. Some people were writing on paper, really old school. There were cameras, all pointed around the room to watch every angle from various vantage points. Camera flashes went off every now and again. This was being broadcast, Lance was sure. It was such a well-known case – or so Lance had heard – and there was no way that people weren’t tuning in from all over the country to watch the trial live.

Thankfully, a recess was called. Lance took it as a chance to breathe without the looming dread that Keith was about to be given the death sentence at any moment. Did they even still do death sentences? Lance was a ball of nerves. It wasn’t much of a reprieve, but it was something. He couldn’t exactly chat with Keith when the boy was supposed to be facing front and centre, not deviating from the plan that his lawyer had no doubt set in place.

This was going to be a long trial and some things were going to come to light that had been buried under the dirt for years, Lance could feel it in his soul. He stared at the back of Keith’s head with fear trickling into his veins like it was on an IV.


	17. Ilium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the heck is up, my dudes! Life update; I fucking slept through my alarm and missed therapy yesterday. Love that for me.

The recess ended far too quickly for Lance’s liking and once more, he was put on edge. They called Detective Galra up to talk about his findings once he had arrived in Lionsville. When he was called, Lotor stood from his spot and shuffled out of the bench to give his details about the case. Not once did he look to Lance – Not that Lance had been expecting him to, but it would have been reassuring.

Something was very final about someone who was sat right beside Lance being called up, as if they were being dragged off to the gallows. Although, in reality, it was Keith who was headed to the gallows if someone couldn’t find some serious evidence that he hadn’t done it. Even Lance could admit that it wasn’t looking good for Keith.

The detective stood in front of the court and spoke about what he had found of Romelle and Allura’s respective grave sites. It hadn’t been exactly as it was found when the detective saw it as he had arrived in town a few days after the discovering of her body had been made. He didn’t have much to comment on regarding the unearthing of Allura, and certainly not for Romelle. It was difficult to figure out what had been part of the scene and was therefore evidence, and what had been caused by the numerous different, unrelated people who had trampled through the woods before he had gotten there.

Afterwards, Lotor went on to describe what he did know and what he had seen first hand, which was the interrogation of Keith in the police station on the same day that they had discovered his house in the woods. He was asked to circle on map where exactly Keith’s shack was. Lance was baffled by the knowledge that there was even an underside to the mountain where one could keep a shack, but it was an ingenious hiding spot. Keith had, after all, gone undetected for twelve years. Somehow, that wasn’t helping his case. Lotor did make a comment about the search of Keith’s house and what they had found, which wasn’t much. Keith didn’t own a lot, and absolutely none of it was incriminating in any way.

So, rather than dwell on that for too long, Lotor moved onto the interrogation. Nothing about it was odd or stood out to him. Keith’s responses were straightforward and didn’t leave any gaps. There was nothing that they could prove was the truth, but there was also nothing that they could prove was a lie. He concluded his retelling of the interrogation by adding, “I found that he was an intelligent kid, but far too brash to have the discipline needed to plan murder to this extent and get away with it for so many years.”

While it wasn’t a compliment, it was a defense of Keith. Lance let his lips quirk into a smile and he straightened up a bit, a quick flicker of hope dancing in his chest like a flame. The judge immediately extinguished that, however, when she directly told the jury to disregard that statement as it wasn’t backed by facts, but rather pure speculation and intuition. Lotor frowned but said nothing.

For what felt like years, Lance watched in outrage as witness after witness was called up to the stand to tell their story of Keith and what they knew of him. Some people told ridiculous tales about when Keith was little, being able to predict the future or to read minds, how he would talk about seeing ghosts of people and knowing intimate details about things that he hadn’t even been around to know of. Of course, Lance knew what was the reason behind that, and it certainly wasn’t black magic or demon possession like a couple people speculated. Other people had asinine tales about wandering up the mountain on a hiking trip and seeing Keith. Knowing that Keith was alive, that was highly likely that they had, but the way they described it was like they had found evidence of the Jersey Devil or Nessie, and it made Lance’s blood boil to hear them speak about Keith in that way.

There were people up there giving testimonies who Lance had known since he had moved to Lionsville, people who he trusted, all spreading exaggerated truths or straight out lies about Keith, and there was nothing he could do about it. There was a pattern in the accounts though, and that was what Lance knew would sell it. This wasn’t the story of a wrongfully accused boy who had a rough life and sheltered himself in the woods, this was the story about an aggressive, furious, violent boy who spoke to demons and was plagued by evil from birth. It was enough to make Lance cry because they would never know the kind of beauty that Keith held in his heart.

It wasn’t too long before lunch, but the judge decided that they would take one more testimony before the break. Dr. Holgersson took the stand and began his story. Lance was almost relieved to see him up there if only for the fact that they would be hearing some real medical truths that weren’t based on hearsay or on encounters blown way out of proportion. The doctor couldn’t even do that if he wanted. Lance listened a little more carefully.

“I did autopsies for both victims on my own, but I also received help from Daibazaal University’s medical staff. The cause of death for Romelle Pollux was difficult to determine as her bones were quite aged and animals had no doubt picked at them before her discovery. Originally, I suspected it might have been from the indentation on her skull caused by a blow to the head, but upon further inspection, it seems that only rendered her unconscious. I’m fairly certain she died from bleeding out after sustaining multiple stab wounds to the neck, chest, and abdomen.”

There was another loud sob across the room and Lance couldn’t help but squeeze his mother’s hand, which he was still gripping tightly.

Dr. Holgersson’s eyes were drawn to the sob. He paused before returning to his official statements, “The stab wounds appeared to be from a knife.” He swallowed and glanced down momentarily. “There was also evidence of an unborn child, perhaps three- or four-months gestation. That was honestly quite shocking.”

“Shocking? Why’s that?”

“Well, she had a whole host of medical issues. She needed a lot of antibiotics and treatments that would normally make it very difficult to become pregnant. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything more on the exact nature of her conditions as no organ analysis could be done for Ms. Pollux.”

The room around them seemed to rustle and stir, suddenly uneasy as they listened to the official medical report being read to them. Something sick whirled around in Lance’s stomach as he imagined the thoughts everyone was having. They probably all thought that that baby was Keith’s. It didn’t sound good when it was read out that way. Lance swore he heard someone behind him whisper the word ‘rape,’ and he wanted to vomit right then.

This was the type of sick shit that everyone had flooded the courtroom to see, not for actual justice. People wanted gritty, disgusting details about other peoples’ tragedies, the ones that didn’t touch them. No one cared about Romelle, or Allura. No one cared about Keith, or the real killer. No one cared about the handful of girls who were also missing in mysteriously perfect intervals, or the actual lives that were being altered in the town of Lionsville. They just wanted their next big disaster, their next true crime mystery. They wanted something they could scare each other with tales of while they pretended that they felt any real sympathy. And that was what was really getting to Lance; the fact that these people were here for a show, not for justice.

“As for Allura Leon,” Dr. Holgersson resumed, “her autopsy revealed much more as it was recent. She was struck in the head like Ms. Pollux was, except this was believed to be the cause of death. She also had knife wounds on her chest and abdomen, with a large gash extending the length of her throat.” He punctuated what he was saying by drawing a line around his neck from one earlobe to the other with his finger.

Lance had to close his eyes for a moment, not able to relive it again. He could practically feel himself back in the dirt at her grave site again, crying into the dirt and begging whatever deity was merciful enough that that pile of upturned earth was not Allura.

The prosecuting attorney – Macidus Druid was his name – held up a hand as the doctor finished explaining the extent of the Allura’s injuries. “Did the wounds show a great deal of experience with a knife?” he asked.

Dr. Holgersson thought on that for a moment, slowly nodding. “I would say they did. From what I’ve seen, they did appear to belong to a steady hand, perhaps that of a butcher.”

“What about a survivalist who practices knife throwing?” Mr. Druid pushed.

“I can’t say for sure, but it’s possible,” Sven answered, an unsure look on his face.

The attorney raised an eyebrow. “You’ve known Mr. Kogane since he was young, have you not?”

“That’s correct. He has always had problems with narcolepsy which I’ve attempted to treat in the past.”

Nodding, Mr. Druid pursued that line, “And did he ever have a knife with him?”

“On occasion, yes,” the doctor answered. “He would twirl it in his fingers. It was a nervous gesture, I believe.”

“Thank you,” the attorney gestured with his hand, “as you were saying about Ms. Pollux’s injuries.”

The doctor acquiesced, “Right, as I was saying, the neck injury was severe enough that it probably would have been fatal given time, but it was a shovel to the head that ultimately killed her. Her dress was torn and ripped in some areas, suggesting a struggle. A rape kit was run, but it came back negative. Her organs were examined by the University, as I stated earlier. I did bring pictures of her preserved organs as evidence, if you need those,” he glanced from the attorney to the jury, then to Keith and his lawyer, then to the judge, waiting for the go ahead.

Luckily, before any of it could get too graphic and horrific for Lance’s taste, Judge Luxia rushed to stop that. “Yes, thank you, doctor, but I don’t think we’ll need those right this second. We’ll adjourn for lunch now, if you wouldn’t mind.” She smiled at him and he thankfully filed the pictures back away in his medicine bag which he kept at his feet for the duration of his testimony.

Everyone in the courtroom began to get up and leave, dispersing as lunch hour was called. Lance watched as Keith was led away through the door in the back by a pair of police officers. He frowned. Lunch was more time allotted to coming up with a plan though, so that was good at least… Lance was really running out of hope. Unless they found the real killer, and quick, Keith didn’t stand much of a chance.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

When everyone filed back into the courtroom and Keith was guided back to his seat at the defendants table, Lance continued to grab onto his mother. Sure, it felt a little childish to be hanging onto his mother like that, but Lance didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t think of a way out of this. It was all happening whether Lance liked it or not and never before had he felt so helpless and unsure of himself. So, he let his mother guide them back to their seats, all the while, never letting his eyes leave Keith.

The Chief Justice quickly reminded everyone of the rules within the court and the ways in which one was supposed to conduct themselves. All too soon, they were back to the case, probably halfway through convicting Keith once and for all.

Dr. Holgersson wasn’t brought back to the stand. Instead, they called forth Adam. He sat in the chair, back straight and professional, as if he was about to open his mouth and spew something other than useless lies and speculations on about Keith’s character. Lance could only hope that someone – namely Shiro – had vouched for his cousin and changed Adam’s stance enough that he wouldn’t draw it all out and make Keith look guiltier than he already looked.

Adam, once asked, told his story of finding the knife, keeping as true to the actual events as he could. Lance appreciated that he wasn’t blowing things out of proportion and being dramatic about it like everyone else in the courthouse seemed to feel the need to, but the thing was that Adam’s story was suspicious enough without him doing that.

Gritting his teeth, Lance listened as he ended his testimony with a quick and subtle, “Lance told me that he brought it with him and not to tell anyone about it.” As if Lance would have said something like that. Everyone was looking at Lance again and he felt his cheeks grow hot.

Finally, it was Lance’s turn. As his name was called, he could feel the blood leave his face and an icy chill run down his spine. Carefully, Lance removed his hand from his mother’s and made his way past the benches and to the front. As he passed Keith’s table, he restrained himself, doing everything in his power not to look over at him. Instead, Lance focused on where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do. The witness stand was so much more daunting up close, Lance noted while he made his way around the side and stepped up to take his place.

If Lance thought the courtroom was packed when he was sitting at his bench, then this, sitting in the witness stand and staring out over the hoards of people who were all hanging on his every word, that was so much worse. He swallowed thickly. His mother was in the front where he’d left her, smiling encouragingly at him. Veronica, on his mother’s right, grinned and did thumbs up, which their mother frantically swatted away. That eased Lance up a little bit. He let his shoulders relax from where they were tensing by his ears. He glanced to Keith as well, finding that he was also smiling at him in that classic Keith style that made Lance want to rise to any challenge.

With reluctance, Lance told his side of the story as the attorney asked. “Romelle was my friend and she was one of the first people I met when my family moved to Lionsville, so I had to see for myself where it was. I couldn’t believe it…”

“How did you know that she had been found dead that morning by police when the story hadn’t been released yet?” Mr. Druid questioned.

“Small town, word travels fast,” Lance shrugged. He didn’t want to admit who had actually told him.

The lawyer narrowed his eyes in suspicion before further asking, “So, then, who told you?”

Lance cringed internally. “Keith…” he replied regrettably.

“And how did Keith know about this?”

“Well, he lives on the mountain.” Before anyone could begin spinning a tale, Lance spoke up, “You don’t understand though, Keith wasn’t looking for the police, he just happened to see them and warned me to be car–”

Lance was cut off, “So, you went up to the crime scene and then what?”

“It wasn’t taped off or anything so it wasn’t much of a crime scene,” Lance defended. “I went up there to see for myself, Adam snuck up on me, and I accidentally fell into the open grave.”

“You fell in or you jumped in?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I fell in. Why would I jump?”

“Right, so you fell in. Continue,” he waved his hand for Lance to go on.

“Adam came to see if I was okay and I crawled backwards to the other end of the grave, and that was–”

“You crawled away from Mr. Wells? Why?” Mr. Druid interrogated, as if Lance hadn’t already been through this with the police.

Sighing, Lance explained, “I was scared of him.”

There was murmuring around the room and everyone looked over to Adam, including some of the officers in the room. Keith was staring hard at Lance. He could probably recall the exact moments when they were by that grave and Adam was acting eerily demanding.

“Why were you scared of him?”

“He snuck up on me at the gravesite of one of my friends while I was alone. That's scary enough by itself,” Lance listed. “The reason I fell into the grave at all was because he was freaking me out and accusing me of things. I was backing up to get away from him. He was acting all creepy and loud, like Mr. Iverson does when I don’t hand in my homework, and I didn’t feel safe. Then, when I was in the grave, he was yelling at me and I was scared he was going to hurt me. That’s why I was hiding the knife. I found it by accident in the grave, and I–”

Once more, the lawyer put up his hand to stop Lance, quickly asking another infuriating question. “You accidentally found the bloody knife belonging to your friend? Would you like to explain how you found it without meaning to?”

Lance’s eyes widened and he pressed his hands to his chest as he exclaimed, “Hey, it’s just as weird to me as it is to you! My hand hit something in the dirt and I pulled it out and it was a knife wrapped in a bandage. I didn’t even notice there was blood on it until later. Adam was being all weird and intimidating still, so I got out of there as fast I could. I brought the knife with me. I was going to turn it into the police, but when I showed it to Keith, he said it was his knife.”

“And that made you decide to not turn it in?”

“No, that isn’t it. The knife really means something to Keith, it’s really important to him, and I couldn’t turn it in because you’d all take it away. We were trying to figure out who the killer was too and we thought we’d just use it in our own investigation and then Keith would never have to give up his knife. That was why we didn’t touch it either…” Lance explained. He felt stupid saying it out loud because of how ridiculous it sounded, but at the time, it all made so much sense. They hadn’t even thought about the possibility of someone thinking it was one of them. “It’s stupid now,” Lance concluded.

He asked, “Did you know it was Keith’s knife before he told you?”

“No, but I had seen him with it before, two years ago. I just forgot until he mentioned that it was his. He didn’t have it on him everyday and then eventually he never had it on him again. I didn’t really notice.”

“And the tree where Ms. Pollux’s body was found was where you would hang out together a lot?”

Lance nodded. “Yeah, it was…” he muttered sadly.

“Who else knew that you liked to hang out there?”

Thinking on it, Lance couldn’t recall telling many people about that specific place in the woods. “I guess, my sister once. Whoever Romelle told.”

“What about Mr. Kogane?” the attorney asked. There was an air of superiority about the way he asked.

“No, I didn’t tell him,” Lance maintained. He set his jaw as he answered, directly meeting the eyes of the man who wanted to put Keith in jail.

“That is all then,” he determined, returning to his seat.

At the other table, the one where Keith was watching everything go down, watching his future be put into the hands of some strangers, the defence lawyer stood from his spot and approached Lance at the stand. His name was Thace Naxzela and despite his daunting build, he had a kind face when he smiled at Lance.

“Mr. McClain,” he opened with, “how did you know where to find Ms. Leon’s body? Did anyone suggest it to you or hint at it in some way?”

Lance, taken aback somewhat at the question, blinked. “No, that was just where Allura went to pick berries. She didn’t go up there much but she knew that area like the back of her hand. I thought that if she was lost on the mountain, she might go there. It was better than just wandering around aimlessly. I was looking for a footprint, or a hat, or something that would show she was there and that was when I… I tripped… over her grave…” Lance whispered, losing his confidence on the last sentence. Momentarily, he closed his eyes to gather his bearings.

“How many people knew about her berry patch?”

“I don’t know…” Lance mumbled.

“Did you see Keith at any point during that night?” the lawyer questioned, gesturing to the boy himself.

With a nod, Lance replied, “Yes, I saw him before I went to the party and I saw him when everyone was looking for Allura.”

“How would you describe his behaviour before and after?”

Lance thought back to before the search. A bloom of red popped up on his cheeks and he averted his eyes. “Uh… before the party… he was… Well, he was a little sad about not having his own graduation but he was telling me that he was proud of me. It was just really… quiet…” Lance recalled. He resisted the urge to melt at the memory. Even when he knew what happened later in the night, Keith still always made his heart do ridiculous things.

“After…” Lance continued, his mood turning frozen and empty, “he was struggling to keep himself together but doing his best for me because I was falling apart…” Keith met his eyes from his spot at the defendant table, regret and sadness dulling the violet that always kept his eyes shining. It had been obvious that Keith was trying not to panic that night, even though he probably knew what they were going to ultimately find. Lance never had the chance to thank Keith for helping him remain as collected as he could that night. It was a devastating night, after all.

“That is all, thank you,” he decided.

Lance watched him wander back across the room to the desk where Keith was sat, apprehensively rubbing at his hands on the table. Shortly after, he was asked to return to his seat, which he did, nervous the entire time he excused himself back to the benches on the other side of the bars. All eyes were on him and he felt the need to avert his gaze as he shuffled past his sister and mother to return to the middle.

“Takashi Shirogane, would you please come to the stand?”

Lance perked up then. How could he not? That was Keith’s cousin and the only person in the entire courtroom besides Lance who might actually know something about Keith’s past. That man could potentially, as far as Lance was concerned, be the only one capable of changing the entire game and saving Keith. Sure, that was a long shot, and Lance couldn’t actually think of any information that would do that, but he held out hope.

His hands clenched his pants so tightly that he could feel his muscles aching in his hands, but he didn’t let up until Shiro had made his way all the way to the witness stand. He stated his name and swore to speak the truth. Even Keith was sitting up straighter than usual this time.

The prosecuting attorney clicked his shoes around the floor as he sized Shiro up, preparing to dig into the truth behind the matter. The questions started out pretty standard, asking what he knew about the case with Romelle, then moving on to what he knew about Allura. Shiro didn’t have anything interesting to add that hadn’t already been said.

“Did Mr. Kogane ever contact you in any way?” the attorney asked, his mangled, worn out features, scrunching up as he stared hard at Shiro.

“Yes,” Shiro answered, “he visits me at night when he needs to get something off his chest.”

That actually surprised Lance. He sat up a little more and leaned in to better hear. So, did Shiro know about Keith’s weird thing? Why hadn’t Lance ever known that Keith was in contact with Shiro? Somehow, this felt like important information that he should have known before. Then again, Shiro was Keith’s only remaining family, so that made sense he would still speak to him.

“And when was the last time he visited you?”

“I can’t remember the date but it was before Allura’s death,” Shiro choked out, trying not to get emotional about the situation behind why they were there. Shiro had a lot to lose here too, Lance realized. He had lost his friend and he was about to lose his cousin, all for nothing. Shiro had to know that Keith didn’t do it. There was no way that he believed all of this was Keith’s fault.

The attorney nodded, his eyebrows draw together. “What did he say?”

“He came to tell me that he was worried another girl was going to go missing. Keith’s always been really protective over the mountain and the town in general, so he did some digging. He told me that he had been discussing it with Lance too and he realized that six girls had gone missing, each with an interval of two years in between them. Keith doesn’t like coming into town, but he wanted me to warn everyone,” Shiro’s voice became more and more distraught as he forced himself through his retelling. “I– I should have warned someone…”

Lance was suddenly hit with the memory of speaking to Keith at the funeral, then, in sequence, with the night of heading to Shiro’s hardware store and meeting Keith there. Everything about that encounter had been odd and stuck out to Lance. This made much more sense. Keith had been there to visit Shiro and didn’t want Lance to know about the ghost thing. So, Shiro obviously knew then. Lance let his eyes close and his shoulders sag as it all slotted into place in his head.

“You said Mr. Kogane is very protective over Mount Altea and Lionsville. Why is that?” the attorney asked.

Shiro paused, staring hard at him. He didn’t speak.

“Mr. Shirogane?” the judge questioned, leaning forward to look him in the eyes.

Licking his lips quickly, Shiro started to reply, very deliberately thinking over his words as he did, “Keith has a big heart and he believes its his duty to watch the mountain since he lives there…”

“Why was he digging into this case so much?” Sauntering over to the witness stand, Mr. Druid carefully inspected Shiro as he tripped his way through a response.

“Everyone in town was invested,” Shiro said.

That wasn’t the answer that Mr. Druid was hunting for as he shook his head slowly, ominously. “Not that much,” he noted. “What made Keith Kogane dig into this case.” His voice was firm and demanding as the question was repeated.

“Like I said,” Shiro insisted, staring down at his hands, at the ceiling, past the audience, everywhere but in someone’s eyes, “he doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

“I’d like to remind you that you are under oath to tell the truth,” the judge stated, one of her eyebrows raising as she judgementally scrutinized Shiro.

He closed his eyes and heaved in a breath. “Okay, yes,” he muttered into the microphone on the stand in front of him. “He’s invested in this case because… in 2006, someone was attacked on the mountain just like Romelle and Allura were. She was stabbed multiple times and she had been beaten over the head.”

“Who was this?” the attorney asked.

Shiro paused again. “Krolia Kogane… Keith’s mother, my aunt…”

There were gasps throughout the entire courthouse as Shiro said those words. The room felt like it was being strangled and there was a collective shuffling as everyone moved closer to the action. Lance could hear the mutters of people near the back, speculating before Shiro could even finish his testimony. Keith’s ears were directed forward too. Although his face wasn’t visible from where Lance was, he could guess that this was painful for him to hear again, especially with the way Shiro was avoiding looking to Keith.

“And what happened the night she was attacked?” Macidus asked.

Shiro choked down the lump in his throat. “I was at my uncle’s house with my mom and we were waiting for Krolia to get back from work. Keith was playing with the dog in the yard. It was getting late and Keith was restless so we let him go play on the mountain since it was right there. The sun was going down and I remember Akira was worried about Krolia, she wasn’t answering her calls and she was late, but we all just figured she was running late and would be home soon.” He clamed up, staring into the middle distance, his eyes glazed over with pain. The look was so haunting that Lance felt chills run up his arms.

Lip quivering, Shiro breathed, “I was saying something to Akira… I don’t even remember what it was… but I was cut off by this– this _shrieking._ Akira and I jumped up and Keith was sprinting through the fields, yelling incomprehensively. We were running out to meet him and he was covered in blood, and I swear, my heart stopped.” His eyes flicked back and forth. He was remembering it all as he spoke, feeling all the emotions again and reliving the horror of that night. Lance’s heart ached as he watched, knowing what was to come. “It wasn’t his blood though. He dragged us up the mountain and into this clearing.

“Krolia was… laying there… She was in a shallow hole and there was barely any dirt covering her, like someone gave up…” There was a long pause in which Shiro took the time to slide his tongue along his teeth and blink back tears. “She was soaked in her blood. It feels like a dream. Akira picked her up and I started running back to the house. I think I yelled at my mother to call the hospital. It was so bad, I don’t even think any of us were planning to bring her to the Lionsville clinic, we just went straight to Daibazaal. Oh, my god, how old was I? I think I was only fifteen, I could barely drive, but I was telling my mom to watch Keith and I picked up Akira at the mountain. I was speeding, I know that, we were just heading to the hospital as fast as we could and I was crying and Akira was screaming and struggling to keep her from bleeding…

“We met the ambulance on the road and they took her. Akira was covered in her blood and he was struggling not to vomit. I can’t even remember what I was doing, it was like I wasn’t even in my own body… It was the longest drive of my life…” Shiro finished his story, his hands instinctively rubbing at his neck and pulling at his collar to help him breathe.

The attorney nodded along with Shiro’s story as if he was completely unphased by what he was hearing. “So, Mr. Kogane was interested in this case because he felt it was his duty after Krolia Kogane’s attack in 2006?”

“Yes,” Shiro whispered. It echoed around the room from the speakers.

He hummed, “Was the attacker ever found?”

“No,” Shiro revealed. “There weren’t any suspects either…”

Macidus agreed, already knowing the details that he was asking for but asking for the sake of showcasing Shiro’s testimony to the jury and the audience. “And what happened to Mrs. Kogane?”

Shiro swallowed thickly, “She… she was in the hospital for a long time…”

Then was a pregnant pause and everyone listened with baited breath. Mr. Druid wandered closer to the stand, staring Shiro in the eyes. “And where is she now?” he asked.

It was barely audible, even with the mic, but Shiro gave his answer, “Marmora Psychiatric Hospital… After her attack, she couldn’t remember anything. Not a thing.”

Lance felt his lungs drain of oxygen and his eyes widened.

“What?” Keith’s broken voice piped up, disbelieving and angry all at once. “She’s alive?”

“Keith, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out like this,” Shiro pleaded.

“Holy shit!” Keith shouted. “She’s alive?! Why didn’t you _tell me?!”_

Shiro leaned across the witness stand, addressing him desperately. “I couldn’t tell you! You were eight years old!”

The gavel hit the desk with a resounding smack. “Order!” Judge Luxia commanded.

Keith ignored her. “I thought she was dead!”

“She doesn’t remember who you _are,_ Keith!” Shiro hollered back.

“It’s been twelve years!” he screamed.

“Order!”

A piercing scraping noise sounded through the bustling courtroom as Keith kicked his chair back. His face was furious and distraught at the same time. He grabbed fistfuls of his own hair, painfully bellowing a series of expletives as his brain struggled to comprehend. Thace shot up after him, attempting to calm his client down. Police were already rushing to intercept him as he wildly exerted himself. Just as everyone was about to reach him, he collapsed, slipping cleanly out of his body. Thace caught him, unsure of what to even do. The entire courthouse was in a roar. The judge was smacking her gavel and shouting, but no one was having it. They laid Keith down on the floor to check him for injuries.

Keith, in ghost form, was much more riotous. He ripped at his hair, at his skin, at the floor. He screamed loudly and furiously, some of his cries breaking off with a voice crack and a series of sobs. Every second word out of his mouth was a curse, some directly aimed at a clueless Shiro, who was frantically attempting to leave the stand and help his cousin, but was being held back by an officer. Lance felt cold horror rumbling through his veins just watching him.

Finally, Keith seemed to pull himself together. He whipped his head around to stare at Lance, a rage burning like fire from his red-rimmed eyes. No, not at Lance. Keith advanced on the audience quickly, teeth gritted and eyes narrowed. Vaulting himself, Keith landed on the bar in front of the first row of seats, nearly in front of Lance, but not quite. He crouched there, hatred absolutely dripping from his voice as he pointed a tensed finger at the detective on Lance’s left.

_“This bastard knew,”_ he hissed, talking to Lance but unable to move himself. Keith was shaking. He nearly broke down into tears in the middle of that one sentence.

Amidst all the chaos ensuing in the courthouse, Lance turned to Lotor Galra sat next to him. In a quiet voice that was on the hinge of disgust, Lance said, “You knew. You knew about the other girls and Keith’s mom. You knew everything.”

Lotor, who was none the wiser to Keith perched directly in front of him, about seven seconds from manifesting to punch someone’s lights out, turned. He said nothing, but Lance could tell by his look that he was right, that Keith was right.

“You didn’t even tell him his mom is…” Lance murmured, disbelieving. Keith was practically growling, unable to sit still. “I thought you were on Keith’s side…”

A shadow overcame his face then. “I am,” he affirmed. “This was the only way I could cast doubt that Keith had done this and make people believe he’s innocent. An eight-year-old couldn’t have done that, nor could he have done any of the murders following it.”

Keith backed down slightly, his eyes widening. Lance balked. Everything around them was loud and unruly, but Lance could barely notice it. As if he was frozen in time, Lance sat there, staring at Lotor. His eyes panned over to Keith. And for the first time that day, it was like the clouds parted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all know that really great thing that happens when people who don't speak a language print merchandise in that language and it doesn't make any sense but it doesn't matter because it was made for other people who don't speak that language?   
> Yeah, I got a milk jar from a Japanese store that says "I get healed very much. It's recommended. Favourite natural place. Wonderful green." It's now my most prized possession.


	18. Malar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is done. I have an industrial piercing. Heh heh heh! I'm so happy with this.  
> Also my break is over and I am ready to accept the sweet release of death at any time, thanks.

Lance stared at the shackles on his wrists, tying him down and keeping him from leaping out of the car that he was being held prisoner in. His eyes flicked up and out the window to watch the courthouse as it disappeared into the middle distance. Heavily, he sighed. There was nothing to be done now that he was being taken away to his cell.

“I know you’re worried about Keith, but that’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Veronica raised an eyebrow as she leaned around the cushioning of the passenger seat to stare at her brother.

Maybe it was a little bit dramatic of Lance to compare his helpless situation to being locked up like Keith was, but as far as Lance could see, he was stuck there. Lance’s hands were metaphorically shackled while Keith’s were literally shackled.

“Don’t worry too much, _mijo,_ this case isn’t over yet,” his mother called out when Lance didn’t answer Veronica.

“Yeah, this is just a short break until they set another trial date. Keith needed to calm down, especially after all that news. He’s acutally doing pretty good though, y’know, considering you told me he was _dead.”_ Veronica called back accusingly.

Lance leaped up, poking his head in between the seats to glare at his sister. “I thought he was! He just has… a ghost form! It makes more sense if you can see it!”

Veronica hollered then, laughing and kicking her foot against the front of the car in her excitement. “You have a crush on Danny Phantom!”

“No, I don’t! Shut up! You weren’t supposed to tell _mamá!”_ Lance suddenly cried. Red flourished on his cheeks and he stared hard at Veronica, not facing his mother.

“I knew you liked someone, Lance,” his mother casually said. “I just wasn’t sure who it was. I’m not very pleased that you’ve been meeting a boy on the mountain without telling me, but he seems like a strong boy.”

Lance blinked. That went better than expected. “Really, just like that? Even after we came from his murder trial?”

She laughed, “If you really believe he didn’t do this, then I trust your judgement. I know you have good intuition, just like your mother! Which is something your sister could use.” One of her hands came across the console to smack Veronica in the arm.

With a squawk, Veronica rubbed at her arm. “It was just the one time! We don’t talk about that anymore…” She glanced out the window with a guilty look on her face while Lance snickered.

“The point is that everything will be fine, Lance, I promise,” his mother reassured. She spared a quick encouraging look at Lance through the rear-view mirror.

“Thanks, _mamá,”_ Lance returned the smile.

The drive to the house wasn’t too long, although it felt longer when Lance was focused on Keith. Rather than make it worse for his concerned mind, he decided to tell his mother and sister stories about Keith, things he did with Keith, what he’d seen Keith do and what Keith had told him about himself. Everything that made up Keith and everything that proved, in Lance’s eyes, that Keith would never be capable of the kind of evil that the killer had performed on that mountain.

Lance filled the entire car with his Keith-ramblings, letting himself get carried away by the love that he had for that boy. He could hear his family members chuckling to themselves, and he could tell by the way they asked questions that Lance’s affections were obvious. No wonder Lance never wanted to mention Keith outright like that, he would just end up spilling his guts to whoever was nearby. For the entire trip, Lance’s own lawyering speech about Keith’s innocence kept everyone busy. Before long, the sun had begun falling past the horizon and allowing the night sky to darken. Luckily, they were just arriving home, pulling into the extended driveway and up to their tiny little farm house.

The night felt like it was dragging on. Lance had left the car, made his way inside, all without looking at the mountain, then rushed up to his room. The collar of Lance’s suit was like a noose, digging into his skin and cutting of his air supply with how tight it felt. Lance opted to, instead of wearing the damned thing, change into his pyjamas so he could conk out quickly for the night. He needed to get up early so he could figure out what to do about Keith and the real killer. He was too exhausted from the day he had just been through to even think about a coherent plan. So, Lance tugged his suit off, tossed it haphazardly onto the clothing chair, and pulled on his blue hemmed white shirt with some blue sleeping pants. Good enough.

The original plan that Lance had was to head downstairs and clear his head with some hot chocolate or tea, but as he passed the front door on his way down the stairs, a glimmer of light caused him pause. “Please, no killers…” Lance muttered as he wandered closer to the source. Shifting the curtain out of the way, Lance peered into the darkened night.

Rather than seeing a flashlight or a car headlight as Lance had been expecting, there stood a boy in a black t-shirt, red leather jacket, and black jeans. His distinct black mullet was dishevelled from being yanked at in the courtroom earlier, but there was still no mistaking that it was Keith, glowing with harsh white light in the middle of Lance’s darkened driveway. He paced around, as if waiting for Lance to notice him, because there was nothing else that he would be waiting for.

Without any hesitation, Lance rushed over to the front door and jammed his feet into his blue and white high tops. As he tied them up, he called into the kitchen, “Hey, guys, I’m just gonna head outside for a minute! I’ll be right back!” Lance grabbed his coat from the closet along the side wall. He could hear the beginning of a hesitant affirmation from his mother, but he was already shouting a “Thanks!” and flinging himself out the front door.

“Hey,” Lance greeted. He pushed his arms into his sleeves and pattered his way down the porch steps towards the glowing boy.

“Lance, hey,” Keith answered. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry about earlier…” Awkwardly, Keith kicked his foot into the dirt. “You shouldn’t have seen me get like that.”

Lance frowned. “No, Keith, it’s okay. I get it. I would have reacted the same way.”

Keith grinded his teeth together as his eyes flicked around Lance’s face and then back down to the ground. “I just can’t help but think that we could have found the killer by now if maybe I knew about this sooner or if a better investigation was done.”

“You can’t blame yourself though,” Lance reasoned.

“I know, I’m not blaming myself, I’m blaming Shiro and my old man and everyone else who knew that it wasn’t an accident,” Keith spat. His legs carried him down the trail and then back up, his energy forcing him to keep moving.

Following after him, Lance attempted to comfort him, “They did what they thought was best at the time though… That’s all a person can do.”

Keith sighed heavily, his shoulders falling along with his spirits. “Yeah, you’re right…” he huffed.

Lance knew that this entire situation was taking a toll on Keith, but he looked so bushed that Lance just wanted to invite him inside for hot chocolate, to bundle him up and relax with him, just for one night. That wasn’t going to happen though, not as long as he was in a holding cell somewhere in Daibazaal.

Keith’s eyes were steadily on the mountain. Sadness glazed over them, like a disease, quickly overtaking his vision. “Lance,” Keith suddenly muttered.

“We’ll get this sorted out, Keith…” Lance offered.

“No, Lance,” Keith tried again, firmer.

With his focus on the boy in front of him, the one he loved, Lance watched as the haze lifted from his eyes. “Yeah?” he inquired, puzzled at the change in demeanor.

“Do you see that?” Keith asked. He raised his hand out to point at the mountain.

Lance followed his gaze. “See, what?” There was nothing except the all-encompassing night that seemed to seep from every crevice, obscuring Lance’s vision. The mountain, like every other night, was a pitch-black mass in the distance with nothing more defined than a mere tree or two at the top of the main path, but otherwise, it was all just an ominous, living, breathing, beast made of solid black.

Then he saw it. The eerie clouds parted in the sky momentarily, just enough that the full moon could cast its ethereal glow down on the mountain. Something glimmered. Through the trees and the bushes that kept the mountain a shrouded mystery, Lance did see it. A hunk of metal winked at them through the blackened tree leaves.

“Wait…” Lance muttered, squinting. “What is that?”

“Nothing good,” Keith growled back. Before Lance could even process what was happening, Keith was stomping off towards the mountain, his golden glow moving with him. His light didn’t touch the darkness around him. As if they were battling it out, the light seemed only to illuminate Keith and nothing around him. A beacon that offered no visibility, Keith moved along through the night to go investigate. That was what got them all into this mess in the first place.

“Hey, Keith, come back!” Lance whisper-shouted. He glanced back to his house to make sure no one saw him running off after Keith, but it seemed he was alone. His shoes thudded against the dirt, kicking clouds up as he moved.

Keith didn’t slow down, but he did call over his shoulder. “That could be important! I’m not letting this mountain go unwatched another night, two years be damned!” he hollered into the night.

No one would hear his voice but Lance and yet he still felt the strong urge to shush the firecracker that was Keith. “We don’t even know what that is!” Lance called back, trying to keep his voice down as he jogged along after Keith’s determined march.

“That’s why I’m going to find out!” Keith barked.

“I’m coming with you!” Lance told him. He picked up the pace a little bit until he was speed-walking alongside Keith. Man, that boy was a fast walker.

Keith spared him a glance, narrowed his eyes, then nodded without a word of complaint. “Mind yourself,” he told him as they exited the McClain property and hurried across the street to the mountain.

Lance couldn’t help but feel a smile come to his face. Keith trusted his abilities. They were partners in crime now.

As the two of them arrived at the base of the mountain, threatening them with its secrets, Lance ducked down into a crouch, hiding himself amongst the bushes as best he could. He slithered his way up the path while Keith stormed at his side, on guard for any sign that they were in danger. At the top, Lance pushed himself into the shrubbery and peaked around the corner of the tree that was disguising him.

“It’s a car,” Lance mumbled. The metal that had been glinting into Lance’s yard was coming from the discretely parked slick black vehicle hidden in and around the other trees. “Whose is it?” Lance asked.

Keith wandered towards it, inspecting the interior of it through the window. “I don’t know, but it’s empty,” Keith shouted back.

“I’ve seen it before. It belongs to someone in town, for sure,” Lance thought out loud as Keith made his way back to the cloaked trees that Lance was covering himself with. “I just can’t place who.”

“Another question we should be asking; what are they doing up here?” Keith suggested lowly, raising an eyebrow as he did. Lance met his gaze before Keith broke it off to stare out into the darkness of the mountain.

With a start, Keith began to transverse the darkened plane ahead of them, travelling further through the darkness. He moved so fluidly amongst the trees, truly a guardian spirit of the mountain. Lance followed along, matching his pace while keeping himself quiet and hidden.

“We don’t even know where we’re going,” Lance said. “They could be anywhere.”

Pausing, Keith scanned his surroundings before turning to Lance. He scratched at his neck, a troubled look on his face. “Yeah, we have to think about this…”

Just as Lance was about to start spit-balling some ideas about where to look or what to do, movement caught his eyes past Keith’s shoulder. Lance flinched in panic, thinking the worst, but he quickly realized it was nothing to be scared of at all. “Keith,” he breathed.

Those violet eyes were on him, widened as they sense the difference in Lance’s demeanor. This time, it was Lance’s turn to point. Keith spun, gasping as he saw what Lance was directing him to. “Holy shit.”

“Romelle,” Lance said. He wasn’t sure what else there was to say.

There, stood along the edge of trees in the distance, was the flickering of a young girl shrouded in blue light. It lit up her blood-soaked outfit. Lance and Keith both cringed at the injury to her skull, but they didn’t look away. Her body still wasn’t fully and properly manifested as she became accustomed to the mechanics of death. Her arm and part of her torso disappeared again, phasing out of existence, then back in. She lifted an arm to gestured at both boys, waving them to come closer. Lance shared a look with Keith, one of apprehension and puzzlement, but they both obeyed, approaching the dead girl.

The second they both took the first step, she stepped backwards as well. Lance furrowed his eyebrows and Keith tensed. Romelle continued to urge them with her hand. “Foll– ow,” she called out. Her voice was choppy and broken, like a record that had a few too many scratches on it. Lance flinched. He wasn’t sure if that was from her being unable to full work her ghost form yet or if it was a result of the gash that split her neck in two.

Then, before either of them could say anything back to Romelle, she spun and began rushing through the underbrush. Her body continued to glitch out of the real world, but her glow was unmistakable.

“Hey!” Keith cried.

Romelle!” Lance’s brain was working ahead of his mouth and he didn’t have time. Frantically, Lance took off. As fast as he could in the darkness with his vision impaired, Lance stumbled off in the direction of the ghostly girl who was guiding them. “We need to hurry!”

“What’s happening?!” Keith shouted after him, attempting to keep up with Lance.

They both sporadically bustled their way through the trees and bushes, bumping into the branches and nearly tripping over numerous stumps and logs. Thickets grabbed at Lance, tearing his pyjama pants and ripping away with his coat. Lance felt some shred his hands, but he didn’t care. Finally, Lance burst through the greenery, coming out into the little clearing of neatly trimmed berry plants that Allura had so often picked her berries from. Keith fumbled his way through after him, confused and disorientated by the sudden shift in Lance.

Romelle’s ghost was standing in the middle of the patch, just as faint and wavery as always. Her hand gestured down to the earth below her. She looked at Lance firmly, seriously, then vanished completely.

“No!” Lance called out.

“Why are we here?” Keith pondered out loud at Lance’s side.

The moon appeared from its hiding place above the clouds and the entire clearing began to glow, as if it there was magic beneath the very dirt they stood upon. It was empty, not a soul in sight – living or otherwise. “I don’t know… Whatever it is, it must be important,” Lance spoke, squinting into the darkness to make certain that there was no one at the tree line on the other side.

“Did we miss something?” Keith hummed. He stepped out into the field, heading to the place where Romelle had indicated. It was Allura’s grave. He inspected it solemnly as Lance joined him in the clearing. There was nothing. Lance shivered as he let his eyes wander the bloodied dirt.

Around them both, the air was still and suffocating, like it was holding its breath in anticipation. The suspense picked at his skin, pulling on his hairs and making them stand on end. Lance let his eyes wander around the clearing, feeling suddenly very unsafe so out in the open with the moon showcasing him the way it was. There was a strangeness leaking into the woods again, an evil that made the trees whisper to each other and made the animals of the mountain cower in fear. Lance could hear nothing but the rustling of the greenery around him, but it still didn’t feel right.

“This is all wrong,” Keith suddenly said. Lance looked to him. There was unease in his frown and panic in his eyes. “Can you feel it?”

“Yeah, I can,” Lance replied as he stared into the distance. He was hoping that his eyes would be able to pick out a person in the darkness but his skin prickled just thinking about what kind of horrors were waiting in the night-ridden woods. Swiftly, Lance averted his eyes before the dark began to get to him more than it already was.

Keith’s head whipped up then. He scanned the area with an angry sort of fear painted across his face. “Lance, he’s coming,” Keith hissed.

“Who?” Lance whispered, swallowing hard. He stepped a little closer to the grave as if it would protect him.

“You know who I mean,” Keith mouthed as he pivoted his head around. “You have to go, or hide, or something, Lance.”

Lance shook his head. He couldn’t leave yet. Romelle had led them there for a purpose, and even if Lance could feel the way the mountain air closed in on him and echoed warnings in his head, he wouldn’t leave until he knew what Romelle wanted to tell him. “I can’t!” Lance exclaimed, not thinking.

Keith shushed him violently just as Lance smacked a hand over his own mouth.

“Sorry, but I can’t. What about Romelle and Allura?” Lance argued.

Keith was still alert, watching the woods around them.

“What about your mom?”

At that, Keith made direct eye contact with Lance, that fire that was so characteristic of him flaring up and crackling behind his eyes. Pain and agony played over his face. After a rapid deliberation, Keith set his jaw and furrowed his brows, forcing the thoughts of his mother to the back of his mind. “That doesn’t matter. You’re more important right now.”

“We have to catch him, Keith,” Lance urged. “We’re here right now for a reason.”

Keith groaned, unsure of what to do. “Alright! Alright, fine, but we have to be fast. What do we need to do?” He relented. The tension that built in his body wasn’t released in the slightest, but he gave his full attention to Lance.

Lance beamed, glad to have roped Keith onto his side. “Okay! It has to be something to do with Allura’s grave, but what? What are we missing?” Lance rambled.

“Well, what do we know?” Keith gestured around with his hands as if he could conjure up the solution like a wizard. “Romelle led us here. She didn’t lead us to her own grave, but to Allura’s. What was different about Allura’s murder?”

Lance scrunched up his face as he struggled to think. It was like the entire forest was descending upon him, chasing him down against the clock. He couldn’t think straight. It was so much pressure, all pressing him around. His eyes were drawn to the grave then. There hadn’t been any clues in the dirt hole. They hadn’t been able to figure out what Romelle was trying to communicate, but as Lance studied it, something in his brain flipped a switch. All at once, Lance knew. “I have to get in the grave…” The pressure released.

“What? Why?” Keith spotted Lance as he wearily kicked his leg into the dirt and lowered himself down.

“The thing that was different about Allura was that we know where she died,” Lance rationalized. “She’s the only one. He thought she was dead but she wasn’t. That was why he hit her with the shovel. That was what killed her.”

Keith grimaced at Lance in the grave. “What does that have to do with you getting in the grave?”

“I have to feel her death.” A silence overtook the surrounding woods. Something completely gripping about the way the woods felt prompted Lance to pick up the pace.

“No, no, no, that’s too dangerous,” Keith disagreed, heading closer to the grave. “What if you die too? What if her death consumes you?”

Lance could already feel the emotions that Allura was feeling seeping their way into his veins and plaguing his mind. It was painful and terrifying, but he pushed through. Ignoring the feelings in favour of meeting Keith’s rattled look. “It’s the only way, Keith. If I can go back to the moments of her death, I might be able to figure out who the killer is. He’s in her memories somewhere. We’ll know who did this.” Lance smiled reassuringly, even in the midst of such a serious and nerve-wrecking situation. “Pull me back if I go too far,” Lance whispered.

Keith looked like he was attempting to hide his paralyzing fear for Lance behind a mask of strength, but he nodded anyway. “I will, I swear,” Keith’s gravelly voice broke on the words.

With that, Lance eased himself down into a sitting position, feeling Keith’s protective eyes on him the entire time. He stretched his limbs out, filling the entirety of the dirt hole. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, like a wave crashing down into the grave and drowning everything in its wake, Lance was overtaken with indescribable agony. He nearly screamed as terror filled his very being. Every part of Lance’s body was on fire and he could barely hear a thing over the absolute banging of his heart. Lance could feel his blood leaving his body from orifices that shouldn’t have existed. His hands were flailing out in front of him. Panic. Lance had never felt this. He was panicking, fighting every sense that told him to get away.

_This isn’t your death,_ Lance shouted in his head. His rational brain grabbed hold of the situation, struggling to regain control and calm himself down. _This isn’t your death, remember what you know,_ he repeated. Lance pictured his family, waiting at home for him, probably wondering why he was taking so long outside. Lance pictured his friends, how worried they had been for Lance outside the police station. Lance pictured Keith, protecting him above the very grave he was currently in, the grave that didn’t belong to him.

His mind flushed clean, like someone was pouring water through his brain over and over. The drowning sensation never left him, but he was able to see it all so much clearer. Allura’s memories. Lance was looking into her mind. With much effort, Lance clawed his way back through her mind as far as he could go, to the earliest moments of her death.

_A door. Where was it? What door was that? It looked familiar. He was outside. It was dark. Lance tried to look around but her memories were locked in place. He glanced downwards. He saw the dress Allura was wearing the night of the party. He must have been at the party then. There was a breeze. He wandered his way around the school._

_Lance gasped. Someone grabbed him from behind. He tried to scream. He couldn’t breathe. There was something over his face. Lance flailed helplessly. He jabbed the guy with his elbow. It wasn’t enough. He kicked her in the back of the leg. This was the fight for his life. He was being dragged away. The car. Lance couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t barely breathe. Everything was fading from consciousness._

_Waking up. Instantaneous. Lance was so dizzy, so confused. Where was he? What was happening? He tried to lift his arm. Tied down. Something was holding him in place. Lance couldn’t see anything. Blindfold? The place reeked. It was so familiar, that scent. Someone was wandering around the room. He pulled on his arms and shook his torso around. Was he screaming? He could have been. A sharpness in his stomach. It was brutal and agonizing, that first hit. As Lance was stabbed over and over, it just got worse, like fire in his blood. Lance was definitely screaming._

_A jump. Suddenly, everything was different. The mountain. Had he come out of it? No, he was still there. He was being dragged through the dirt. The blindfold was gone. Lance could see his body in the arms of a man. Every part of his skin was limp and weak, his stomach and chest were on fire. Lance could see the blood. He was so weak that he couldn’t lift his head to see who it was. Who was carrying him?_

_A dirt hole. Lance was in the grave. There was dirt on his stomach. It seeped into his wounds, stinging like hell. There was dirt around his neck too, filling the gash like a mould. Lance tried to scream. He couldn’t. The dirt was dumped on his face. He wanted to cough or move but his body was running out of blood. There was nothing for him to fight with. It slipped into his nostrils, into his parted mouth. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs were burning like the rest of him. It layered over his eyes. He couldn’t see. It was compressing down on him. His legs, his arms, his chest, every part of him was weighing down on his weakened body. Lance was panicking but he couldn’t hardly move._

_All the strength he had went to his arm. He dug at the dirt, first with his fingers, then his whole hand. The fear, the agony, the realization was all crashing down on him like the piles of dirt the killer was adding to the pile. He forced his hand up through the earth, everything he had being put into it, one last bit of hope._

_Someone screamed above him. It was a startled yelp. Lance could barely hear it through the dirt that was clogging his ears. He was fading. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He was choking._

_“You’re still alive?!” someone above him barked, surprised and impressed, but still angry._

_Lance knew that voice. Lance gasped. More dirt, piles of dirt. He had to open his eyes. He knew who it was. He had to leave. This wasn’t his death. Keith. He thought of Keith. Lance had to leave Allura’s memories before–_

_A shovel pierced the dirt and directly into Lance’s skull._

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

“Lance?” Keith called out. “Lance? You have to get out now.” Keith leaned back out of the hole to check their surroundings again. There was nothing, but the whispering wasn’t letting up, the evil wasn’t retreating. “Lance!” Keith tried again, more frantic than before.

When Lance had first crawled into the hole, it was a lot of thrashing and panicking. Keith resisted every urge to interrupt him or reach into the grave and yank him out of there. Lance had to identify the killer, that was the goal. So, Keith had waited on his hands and knees, gripping the edge of the grave like his life depended on it. Lance had calmed, he had been perplexed, his glazed over and unseeing blue eyes shifting sporadically as they stared into the memories of a dead girl. There was more fear and confusion. He had been struggling in the grave just like Keith had been struggling out of it. The pain on Lance’s face had been unbearable to witness, but Keith didn’t stop spotting him.

That was when his hand had shot upwards. Not expecting it, Keith had flinched back, startled. Lance clawed at the air desperately, made a choking noise that Keith would never unhear, then dropped his arm back down next to him.

He wasn’t moving anymore. Keith was now the one who was freaking out. “Lance?!” he shouted. There was no response.

The air above them was swirling and clouding over. There was no time to wait. Keith leaped into the hole next to Lance, manifesting his hands enough to tug at the lapels of Lance’s coat and to feel his face. He was stone cold and completely lifeless as Keith shook him.

“Lance, wake up! C’mon, Lance! Fuck!” Keith cried helplessly. He could feel the energy leaking from his own ghost form, tearing him down and making him weaker.

Keith stared into Lance’s dead eyes. One moment it was Lance, the next it was his mother. Her lifeless, violet eyes stared up at him. Blood was everywhere. Keith lurched back, screaming. His chest was heaving and he knew that if he was in his human body, he would be sobbing. Keith could feel his mind shutting down and his body draining itself of energy. His hands reached out frantically, grappling for something to steady himself. He touched the soil walls of the grave, using up more energy just to gather his thoughts again.

“Okay, okay,” Keith breathed, eyes wide and unseeing, just like Lance, just like his mother. “Think, think, Keith, you’ve got this, think,” he whispered hurriedly. “Fuck… Fuck! Think, dammit!”

Lance was dying, right there in the same grave as Allura, the girl Keith couldn’t save, on the same mountain where countless people had died. Keith was just watching it happen before him. The killer was on the mountain too, further endangering Lance.

An idea came to him. It was hinged on Lance’s own actions, but Keith was really trusting in him here. Wasting no time, Keith manifested his hands harder, using more energy. He patted Lance’s jacket down, checking every pocket for a cell phone. Nothing. Keith barked, frustrated and frenzied as he moved onto Lance’s pyjama pants. He had to bring his phone. Lance brought it everywhere. He tapped at Lance’s upper thighs, hoping upon every hope that he would find it.

Keith sobbed. Lance’s phone was in his right pants pocket. He forced his hands through the veil between worlds. It hurt so bad, tugging at his skin like he was attempting to force his arm through stress ball plastic. His skin stretched and pulled, carving at his ghostly form. Keith reached into Lance’s pocket, removing the phone.

Once it was in his hand, Keith opened it. Locked. Fuck. He swiped around, searching desperately for the emergency call feature when his hand was falling apart at the seams. He was fading. Keith’s vision was clouding and his consciousness was wavering. His energy was almost gone. He’d used too much. Keith slammed his finger into the first digit of the emergency number. Second number. His head felt so heavy. He pressed the third. Lance still wasn’t responding. Fuck, wrong button. Keith heaved. He hit the back button. The world blackened. His finger hovered over the last digit, the correct digit. He felt his body go limp. His finger hit the final number. And right before Keith vanished entirely from the grave, he managed to just barely skim the call button with his finger.


	19. Lumbar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello! An update for you all!
> 
> Listen. I'm sure you all knew this was coming, because what's a murder mystery without a reveal, but this is it. 
> 
> Time to unmask our scooby doo villain.

Keith sucked in a breath. His chest heaved. He coughed and choked in as much air as he could. Keith threw himself forward, disorientated and confused.

“Hey! Calm down! Stop!” someone was yelling at him angrily.

Keith forced himself to look at his surroundings, his eyes sporadically dancing around the area he was in. It was unfamiliar. The person next to him was unfamiliar. “Who are you? What’s happening?” Keith demanded. He tried to move back but his hands were restrained from the front.

“We’re at the station. You passed out in holding,” they answered.

With his back pressed as far into the seat behind him as he could go, Keith let his body regulate itself as close to normal as he could manage. He was in a car. There were bars on it. Police car. His wrists were being restrained by handcuffs. The man opening the door to remove Keith was an officer. They were at the station in Lionsville, just like he had said they were. Keith let himself relax.

“C’mon, and don’t try anything,” the officer urged, attempting to get Keith out of the car.

Obliging, Keith slid his way out, letting his feet hit solid ground once more. He was so dizzy and there was a cloud around his mind. It wasn’t often that Keith felt as exhausted and worn out as he did right then, and the funniest part was that he couldn’t remember why that was. He wasn’t out of his body at the trial long enough to warrant this much fatigue. What was it then? He had been in the holding cell. He left his body. Why did he do that? He went to Lance’s house…

_Lance._

Keith nearly screamed right then. The police officer was about to grab at his wrists when Keith lurched forward, his face distorted in horror. “What time is it?!”

The officer jerked back. “What?”

“Did you get a phone call?! Oh, god! Lance is on the mountain!” he shrieked. All instinct told him to go, to move. Keith took one step towards the station, shouting out in panic as he did, but a sharp kick to the back of his knee sent him down. He caught himself on his tied hands.

“Stay down!” the officer ordered.

Keith growled, “You don’t understand! Lance is dying! We have to help him!”

The officer was about to spit something else at Keith, something about he was a murderer and no one needed to listen to him, Keith could hear that answer on the tip of his tongue. Before he could, the door to the station burst open. Sheriff Zarkon thundered out, pointing and yelling before he was even over the threshold. Lotor Galra was at his heels, just as determined and urgent.

“Get to the car! We got a call from the McClain boy but no one spoke, then his mother called; he’s missing,” Zarkon explained, already leaping into the front of the cruiser. “Not the only one missing. Katie Holt. Last seen a few hours ago.”

Keith forced himself upwards, knocking into the officer when he attempted to keep him down. “Lance’s on the mountain! He’s in the berry field! Please, you have to hurry,” Keith told them frantically as the officer yanked at the cuffs around his arms.

“Quiet, you!” he huffed.

Lotor piped up then, “No, put him in the back. We might need him.”

The officer looked befuddled at the command. Keith tugged himself free of the man’s grip, earning himself another yip, before shimmying his way into the cruiser.

“Are you sure?” Zarkon criticized. He stared at Lotor with a funny look.

Lotor, while ripping the passenger side door open, challenged the look. “Yes. Drive.”

Apprehensively, Zarkon kicked the car into reverse and stepped on it, booking them out of there. They sped down the road, billowing dirt out behind them in their wake. Keith pressed his face as close to the windows as he could get with the bars in the way. His hands were still shackled before him, but he didn’t pause to think about it. It was too dark to see up the mountain when they arrived and the car that was at the top was no longer glimmering in the moonlight. They made their way up to the mountain entrance, as far as the car could carry them.

As soon as the car stopped moving, Lotor was launching himself out the door. Keith was about to start yelling and pounding on the window, but for some reason, Lotor didn’t go racing off into the night towards the berry bushes. Instead, he pulled open Keith’s door. “Where is he?” he asked urgently.

Keith, taken aback by being asked for his input, didn’t speak. His eyebrows pinched together and he set his jaw. In one swift movement, Keith slid out of the car. “Berry field, Allura’s grave. Follow me,” Keith instructed. Zarkon was just leaving the vehicle. Although there was suspicion in his gaze as he studied Keith, he nodded for the boy to lead the way.

On quick feet, Keith began sprinting. He crashed through the underbrush and shoved branches out of the way as fast as he was able. They tore at his skin and clothes, but nothing slowed him down. His foot caught on a dip in the earth, tripping him. He didn’t fall, only stumbling momentarily while he regained his balance. The cuffs on his hands held him back but he forced himself to move as expeditiously as his legs could carry him. Years of living in solitude on the mountain allowed him to recognize every single leaf in the entire forest and he knew exactly where he had to go. Behind him, the sheriff and the detective raced after him, ready to help Lance.

They burst through the darkened underbrush, coming out into the clearing. Keith paused, bouncing on his feet once. Starting forward, Keith advanced on the grave. “Over here!” he alerted the others. Lance was still in the grave and Keith feared the worst. “Lance,” Keith exhaled.

Rather than finding his best friend and the love of his life dead in a ditch, lifeless and gazing into nothingness like Keith had expected, he instead was surprised as Lance’s eyes rolled around in his skull momentarily as they searched for the source of the noise. They landed on Keith. Chest jerking upwards, Lance seized once. He choked and hacked, rolling over to the side to empty whatever was in his lungs out into the death bed.

“Lance, are you okay?” Keith dropped to his knees next to the hole in a frenzy.

When Lance rolled back over, there was a look in his eyes that shocked Keith, that haunted him. He met Keith’s eyes. “Keith,” Lance spoke, his voice raw and stripped from all the agony he had endured in the memories of Allura’s final moments, “he’s still here. He’s not going to wait two years, he’s _here,”_

Keith reached down with his chained hands to help Lance sit up in the grave. “Who? Who is it, Lance?” Detective Galra and Sheriff Zarkon were on either side of the hole, waiting intently for Lance’s answer.

His face was deathly pale and he never broke eye contact. “Dr. Holgersson,” Lance revealed.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Lance’s body felt so weak after the way that he had been wrung out in Allura’s memories, but he pushed himself upwards anyway. Keith’s outstretched hands, which Lance noticed were tied up in metal cuffs, anchored him. His legs were stiff and numb. Everything felt like a dream. Detective Galra was there, so was the sheriff. Lance wasn’t sure when any of that was decided, but he accepted their help when they lugged him out of the dirt hole. Every part of his body was aching.

“Keith,” Lance muttered once he was out of the hole. “We have to find him.” His voice was breathy and weak, as if he had lost his voice from all the screaming and soil filling his esophagus. Although it hadn’t happed to him personally, experiencing it second-hand was more than enough to injure Lance in some way.

“Don’t worry, we will,” Keith assured. He pulled Lance closer, which Lance easily accepted, leaning all his weight onto the other boy’s shoulder. It was a difficult maneuver when Keith was cuffed, but they made it work as best they could.

Lance glared into the surrounding woods. It was so hard to see, not just through the darkness, but also through the heavy fog that had descended upon the bulking mountain. All around, Lance could feel an electric energy emerging from every crevice on the mountain, like the spirits of the forest were prodded and lured out of hiding at the arrival of the killer.

“We have to hurry before something happens to the Holt girl,” Sheriff Zarkon warned them.

Lotor agreed, a troubled look on his face. “We may already be too late.”

Lance felt as his heart was swallowed and his stomach opened up into a bottomless pit. “Pidge? He has Pidge?” He feverishly stared between Keith, Zarkon, and Lotor, his eyes bugging out at the notion that the fucker had one of his best friends.

“Yes,” Lotor told him plainly, “and we need you to think. Where does Pidge like to go on these mountains?”

Lance’s mouth was dry, his tongue heavy and useless. His mind was working so slowly, but he combed through it, over and over again, clawing at every memory he held of Pidge. “I don’t know,” Lance huffed.

“You have to know!” Zarkon boomed.

“I don’t know! She never comes up here for anything unless I bring her up here!” He could feel his lungs desperately trying to pull in air and failing. Every time he took in air, it felt like his lungs were blocked off. He was hyperventilating.

Keith, next to him, stared up through his bangs. “Lance, hey, c’mon, big breath in, big breath out.” He demonstrated. Lance copied. His breathing evened out.

“We can’t just wander this entire mountain, we need to start somewhere,” Lotor demanded, as calmly as he could when everyone around him was freaking out just as much.

While Lance stared into Keith’s violet eyes, working on his breathing, he suddenly remembered something. It was crucial. “The Pidge Tree,” he gasped abruptly, throwing Keith off.

“The what?” Keith echoed.

Lance was already lurching his way along the path in the direction they needed to head. At least, he thought it was. The fog was so dense that Lance was almost sure he would hit his knee on it if he walked too far. Keith kept pace with him, holding the mad boy up. “I took her up here one time and she carved her name into a tree. That’s where it has to be! There’s nowhere else,” Lance explained.

“That’s perfect,” Lotor beamed. It was an odd time to be grinning, but Lance wasn’t about to argue.

“We’ll catch that bastard yet,” Sheriff Zarkon rumbled lowly.

“Lead the way,” Keith spoke, determination brimming in the way he hiked Lance up a little more and continued matching his every step.

Lance kicked his legs out, trying to find any strength he could. Everyone was relying on him in that moment and he could barely speed-walk. The fog was so thick. There were so many twigs and stumps on the ground that Lance couldn’t see through the haze. He tripped numerous times. Keith did too. They hobbled along. The moon was in the sky, shining down on them, offering them strength. The tree was so close. All they had to do was get to the field of trees where it was.

Somewhere in the back of Lance’s mind, something with a worn and sickly voice calmly whispered at him. _What if that’s not where he’s taking her?_ it asked. Lance tried to ignore it. He tried his best to push it down and out. There wasn’t time for those thoughts, but it persisted. Where else on the mountain could it be? There was nowhere, so this had to be it. Unless, the doctor had just picked a random spot that had no significance. Did that symbolism really matter to him after all? His mind was alit with anxiety, but he forced himself to continue. He had to trust in what he knew.

One of his best friends was up there, on that mountain, about to be stabbed to death and he was the only one who could help her. Lionsville’s own doctor was about to take her life. The one person who everyone always trusted to keep them alive, to protect them, to help them when they were on death’s doorstep, he was the one who was delivering them there all along. It was sick. Lance wanted to vomit just recalling how many times that man had come to his house with the police, acting as though he was helping in the investigation. He was really just seeing what the police knew. He testified against Keith in court, too, fuck. Lance was beyond furious.

Finally, after what felt like years, they came upon the field of trees that held the Pidge Tree. They were all twisted and mangled. Some of the roots came above the earth, creating overarching rings. It reminded Lance of an octopus to see so many different twisting and swerving pattern made from the wood like that. Like a sea monster’s tentacle frozen in time, all over the field, roots curved up out of the dirt before curling back around to dip back into the earth. Keith had once told him that it was the result of a flash flood that had occurred on the mountain many years before either them were even born that had eroded the dirt away but left the trees behind, just as they were. That was what Lance had told Pidge the day he had brought her to adventure around the mountain. That was why she chose those trees for her carving.

Sheriff Zarkon was all ready to go bursting into the field after Dr. Holgersson and Lance was sure that Keith would have been too if he wasn’t keeping Lance from tipping over in that moment, handcuffs or no handcuffs. Before the officer could do anything brash, however, Detective Galra put his hand out, blocking him. “Wait,” he hissed as he crouched down, ducking behind a bush.

Keith and Lance shared a glance before copying. The sheriff, although reluctant, hunkered down and hid himself as well. It was a good thing that it was dark and foggy that night because Lance and Keith weren’t very well hidden due to both of their limited mobility, Lotor was covered by only a flimsy shrub that did nothing to conceal his white hair, and Zarkon was just impossible to hide even if the entire mountain came together to do it. Still, they all peaked out from their hiding places in wait.

From where they were, Lance could see the Pidge Tree perfectly. The scratchy carving that was nowhere neat and tidy. Pidge, for all that she was good at, was not the best at hacking her name into a tree. Lance suddenly felt like crying just staring at the wavering letters.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Lance could see a rustle of movement. He flicked his attention toward it and cowered behind the trees to make sure he was out of sight. Keith had noticed it too, his eyes narrowed in an attempt to see what was causing the motion. A shadowy figure, tall and hulking meandered through the field of trees, passing around the octopus leg roots. Lance sucked in a breath. It had to be him. Where was Pidge? The man turned. Lance nearly sobbed and he felt as Keith’s hands strengthened their hold on Lance’s arm.

There, dangling lifelessly off the back of the figure’s shoulder, was a girl. She scarcely looked like more than a ragdoll the way her arms swayed and her head lolled with every step the man took. The wild strawberry-blonde hair was unmistakable though; it was Pidge.

“That’s him,” Zarkon whispered.

Lance itched to move. “Is she dead?”

“I don’t see any blood…” Keith mumbled under his breath.

“He probably wanted to kill her with the shovel like Allura,” Lotor commented quietly.

Keith and Lance both turned to the detective, repulsed by that idea. Lance looked to the man again. “I won’t let him hurt anyone ever again,” Lance spat through gritted teeth. He leaped up, dashing his way through the winding maze of tree roots. His legs were still weak – his whole body was – so, he did little more than limp towards the man. Keith followed closely behind him, also racing after him.

“Dr. Holgersson!” Lance shouted. “Put her down!”

“Let go of Pidge, bastard!” Keith hollered.

The shadowy figure jolted and turned in surprise. In the moonlight, Lance could suddenly see the shimmering blue shock that was painted over Sven Holgersson’s face. He immediately dropped Pidge in a heap and began sprinting off through the trees at break-neck speeds. Snapping and crashing could be heard throughout the silent forest as he escaped.

Keith was the first to arrive at Pidge’s side, dropping to his knees next to her body. Lance hobbled along to join him. Behind him, Sheriff Zarkon and Detective Galra were racing through the woods to reach the killer.

“How is she?” Lotor asked, pausing to check on the girl and to pull out his gun from the holster he kept under his coat.

“Alive,” Keith answered. His cuffed hands were up against her neck as he pressed his fingers to her carotid artery. “Drugged, I think.”

Lotor nodded. “You two stay here, we’ll go catch him.”

“He’s headed to the falls!” Lance told the man.

“There’s no through-road from there,” Keith added as he tended to Pidge the best he could.

Lotor faced Zarkon, who was standing a few steps ahead of him, also with his gun out. “Let’s go,” he ordered.

Zarkon grunted before they both took off through the woods after the doctor.

Lance turned back to Keith, who was picking Pidge up. It was a difficult procedure, but he managed to get Pidge into his cuffed arms, carrying her bridal style. Keith studied her for a moment to make sure she was alright and comfortable enough, then he glanced to Lance. There was no way that they were both going to stay behind and miss the capture of the man who had taken so many people from them, who had been completely prepared for Keith to take the fall after injuring his mother.

With a shared dip of their heads, Lance began fumbling his way through the woods again. The painful weakness in his legs, while a long way from being gone, had receded enough that Lance could achieve a light jog. As fast as possible when Lance was injured and Keith was carrying Pidge, they followed along on the path that the officers had taken in an attempt to hunt down Dr. Holgersson.

Bursting out from the trees, Lance’s ears were assaulted with the booming of the waterfall as it spouted water into the gorge below. The water was so dark and powerful at night, no longer the relaxing place it was in the daytime. Lance took in the situation. Dr. Holgersson was standing on the very edge of the waterfall, half a step from falling over the cliffside.

The detective and the sheriff were aiming their guns as him. “Come away from the edge, nice and easy, Sven, we just want to talk,” Lotor was calling out to him.

“I– I can’t!” he shouted back, confused more than scared or defeated.

What they couldn’t see though, that was what gave Lance real pause. Keith stood next to him, unable to see what Lance could see when he wasn’t in ghost form.

All around the doctor on the cliff, angry spirits stood, closing in on him. One was a young girl with a sharp face, glaring and yelling something at the killer. Her pink ponytail flounced around as she advanced on him. Another girl with a purple bob sliced at an angle was also yelling. She had the same kind of fire in her eyes that Lance had so often seen in Keith. On the other side of the doctor, a girl in a hijab was signing at him with her hands, moving them so furiously. Lance could barely keep up with the actions. There was a girl who was much taller than any of the others, she had wild hair that kind of reminded Lance of Pidge, her face was murderous and she practically had fangs with the way she was projecting her agony at the man. Romelle was there too, glitching in and out of existence, but still giving the man a piece of her mind with her broken record of a voice.

They were all soaked in blood, all with gashes on their necks, and all with parts of their skulls caved in.

“What?” Keith questioned. “What do you see?”

“The girls. The ones he murdered. They’re all here,” Lance whispered back in awe, never removing his eyes from the sight before him. They were all moving closer and closer, manifesting here and there, just enough to force him back. Dr. Holgersson wasn’t even sure what was happening, he just jerked at the feeling of something unseen touching him. “They’re trying to push him off the cliff.”

Keith’s face morphed into one of disbelieving panic. “You have to stop them.”

Lance whipped around to glare holes into Keith. “Why? He’s being pushed to his death by the girls he killed. Isn’t that justice?” Lance barked.

Canines showing as he growled, Keith answered without ever taking his eyes off the doctor. _“No._ It isn’t. If he dies here, it’s too easy. He needs to be tried for what he did. Everyone needs to see him and look him in the eye, knowing what he did. He needs to face the families whose lives he ruined. He needs to answer for himself.” Keith was practically shaking with fury. His hold on Pidge tightened.

With his eyes carefully trained on Keith, Lance felt himself calm slightly. Keith was right. This wasn’t justice. Falling off a cliff wasn’t justice, it was an escape. That man who had hurt so many people really did need to face the consequences of his actions, no matter how much Lance wanted him to go through the same kind of pain that he had put so many girls through before.

“They just want peace,” Lance sighed.

Keith narrowed his eyes. “Having his ghost on this mountain forever won’t bring peace.”

Lance, without replying, stepped forward purposely. Keith marched in step with him, still carrying Pidge. They could hear as the detective and the sheriff hollered at them to get out of the way, but they didn’t listen. Instead, they stood right in the middle of the line of fire.

“Dr. Holgersson,” Lance shouted over the roaring waves behind the killer.

He looked frightened and unsure of what to do. Lance felt nothing as he stared at him. “Something is pushing me!” he called. “What’s happening?” His voice wavered.

“This is what you deserve. Actually, this is much less than what you deserve for hurting all those girls,” Lance told him. He was steady and confident as he faced the killer. Even covered in dirt and blood, even shaky and weak, even in the face of someone who he had trusted and who was taller and stronger than him, Lance had no more fear left to offer this man.

“Make it stop!” Dr. Holgersson cried, trying to sound like he had the situation under control.

Lance didn’t even flinch. “Why should I?!” Lance shrieked at him. “You’re a doctor! You’re supposed to help people and save them! This entire town trusted you to help them and you killed people! You’re sick!”

Dr. Holgersson was stunned into a furious silence, just glaring at Lance with a manic sort of expression. He didn’t have anything to say. There was nothing to say. The girls who had been steadily forcing the doctor off the cliff paused in their haunting to face Lance, curious but raging at the same time.

“If I did what I really wanted to, I’d let you fall off this waterfall, but that’s not going to help anything. Those girls deserve real justice. This town deserves real justice.” Lance made eye contact with each girl, offering them the promise of peace through his gaze as well as his words. Finally, he returned his focus to Dr. Holgersson. “I’m not a murderer like you either,” he concluded.

“You _will_ go to trial, you _will_ confess to everyone, you _will_ be found guilty, and you will _never_ see the light of day again,” Keith told him, deathly cold in his delivery. “The whole world will know what kind of monster ended the lives of so many girls.”

“It’s over,” Lance whispered. He wasn’t speaking to the doctor anymore, or Keith, and not even to the law enforcers who were stood behind them, watching Lance and Keith cautiously.

The group of ghostly girls blinked at him, faces draining of anger. They shimmered with the edge of death about them. Slowly, they each shared a look between the others, then vanished into the air as if they had never been there to begin with. Romelle was the last to leave. She met Lance’s eyes. When the lower half of her face wasn’t glitching out, Lance could see that she was smiling at him. He smiled back.

There was no one else there to push the man over and he stood there for a moment, stunned. “The pressure…” he attempted to explain. “It’s gone.”

Lance stepped down from the edge, grabbing Keith’s sleeve and tugging him away as well. “They’re gone,” he told Keith, leaning over to be heard over the roaring waters without yelling it outright.

Keith solemnly stared as Detective Galra and Sheriff Zarkon rushed forward. Zarkon grabbed a fistful of the doctor’s jacket and yanked him down from the cliffside. He stumbled, incredulous to the experience he had just had that he had no way of describing. Lotor kept his gun pointed at Sven as Zarkon swung some handcuffs out from the side pocket of his holster. They clicked neatly into place around his wrists, holding his arms behind him. Lotor holstered his gun again and began reading off his rights.

“Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” Keith suddenly asked.

“You mean the girls?”

Keith wistfully replied, “Yeah.”

“I don’t think so,” Lance sighed. “They got their peace, after all.”

“What about Allura?” Keith suggested, a sadness in his tone.

Lance chewed at his lip for a moment, standing in silence as he thought it over. “I hope not…”

“A shame,” Keith hummed. “I wanted to see her again.”

“Maybe she’ll visit us before she passes over.”

“Maybe…”

The officers were leading Dr. Holgersson back the way they had come, through the forest of octopus trees. Zarkon had the man’s arms practically clamped in place with his hulking hold. There was no way he was getting away from the sheriff now. Detective Lotor paused on his way by to point at Pidge. “I can take her, if you want?” he offered.

Pidge stirred in Keith’s arms. He glanced down at her. “Yeah, thank you,” he agreed, handing Pidge off to him. Lance couldn’t imagine it was easy holding onto someone while your hands were tied together like that.

Lotor accepted the bundled up, drugged girl, gently resting her head on his forearm and supporting the rest of her body with his chest and hands. “We’ll get her to the nurses at the clinic right away and tell her family that she’s alright,” Lotor detailed. “Are you two coming?”

“In a moment,” Lance answered.

Lotor nodded respectfully before following after Zarkon with Pidge in his arms, her head lolling around on his arm.

Lance and Keith watched them go, staying behind at the waterfall for a few moments longer, peace overtaking them in the middle of the darkened mountain. It felt so different knowing that the killer had been caught. There was something strangely humanizing about the whole thing. When the killer was a nameless, faceless threat, it was easy to see the mountain itself as the enemy, but now that they knew who he was and he was in custody, Lance couldn’t help but feel empowered by the rushing waterfall and the bulking cliffsides.

“It’s your mountain again,” Lance grinned.

Keith glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, smirking. “You’ve got it backwards; I belong to the mountain.”

“She’s lucky to have you.” Lance knocked his arm into Keith’s.

“I just hope the town lets me stay up here,” Keith chuckled, shaking his head. “I have been avoiding everyone for twelve years, after all.”

With a smile, Lance joked, “If they don’t, they’ll be answering to me.”

“That’s no joke, Lance, you’re a real force to be reckoned with.” Keith held his hands up to sarcastically show he wasn’t looking for a fight. His handcuffs jangled.

“Speaking of which, you should show me your shack some time,” Lance jeered.

Keith gave a flat, unimpressed look and smacked Lance with his clanking cuffs. “It’s not a shack. It’s a cabin.”

Lance snorted, catching Keith’s hands in his own, “Either way, Mountain Man, you owe me a tour.”

“If the police haven’t ransacked the place.” He rolled his eyes and pretended to ignore the way that Lance was shuffling them closer together.

“Hey, Keith,” Lance muttered. His heart was fluttering and his palms felt sweaty.

“Hm?”

Lance smiled brightly, the first real smile he had given in a long while. “You did good.”

Briefly, Lance was acutely aware of how beat up they both looked. Lance, with his pyjama pants that were covered in soil and torn from racing around, his shirt that was also a mess of dirt, his hair that was sticking up every which way and doing a great job of distracting from the dirt that smeared across his left cheek. He was also pretty sure he was missing his phone. Keith, with his dirty black jeans and his leather jacket that had one shoulder falling off, his mullet splayed out in the back like a peacock’s feathers, and of course, the handcuffs that rang every time they bumped into each other.

Keith’s lip quirked up in a half smile but his eyes gave away just how pleased he was to be there with Lance. “You did too.”

Even sweaty and dishevelled, Keith couldn’t help but look stunning as he pretended not to be completely enamored with Lance. Had Keith always looked so lovestruck when he stared at Lance? He hadn’t ever noticed it before, but suddenly, on that mountain, it was so clear to him. Lance could feel in his own face that he was making the same goofy face that Keith was.

With a final tug on Keith’s chains, they both gave in and closed the distance that was riff with sparks of energy. Keith tilted his head up to meet Lance and his eyes fluttered. Their lips connected gently. A hum escaped Lance’s lips and pressed into Keith a little harder. His head twisted to the side without any conscious thought, chasing the feeling of Keith’s touch. Keith opened his mouth slightly, massaging Lance’s lips, eliciting a purr from the taller boy.

Lance’s hands, which were gripping onto Keith’s handcuffs, suddenly twitched. Overcome by the urge to be closer to Keith, Lance’s hands trailed along his wrists and up the underside of his forearms. His legs shuffled forward, drawn in by his fervour for Keith like the planet was pulled in by the sun’s gravity. Keith grunted, pleased as Lance’s hands shifted to smooth along his waist, luring him nearer. Jingling broke the melody of muffled whines as Keith raised his hands to cup Lance’s jaw. Fingers trailed along Lance’s skin and across his cheeks, feeling like shocks of lightning through his body.

Lips tingling, hands pressing, lungs burning, skin on fire, they pulled away. Neither moved back, both revelling in the feeling of being a hair’s breadth from the other. Keith’s eyes shifted between Lance’s eyes, lidded and hazed over with adoration. His lips parted on a panting breath and his cheeks were tinted. Lance was breathless. Goosebumps dotted his skin and his heart ached from the force at which it beat. There was something in the pit of his stomach that bottomed out, making his feel like he was free falling. It was nerve-wracking and exciting all at once. Neither of them spoke, instead, meeting back in the middle.

It was electric, the way Lance’s skin lit up at every touch of Keith’s fingers, every press of his lips, every groan he emitted, every shuffle of his feet, every keening twitch of his body. His mind was just completely consumed with Keith and everything that he was. Lance pressed a little rougher, pulled him a little closer, and let himself be overwhelmed.

The thought crossed his mind as he was chasing Keith’s mouth – albeit weakly and slightly blurred – that he hadn’t ever imagined he’d ever get to kiss Keith, that he had been under the impression that Keith was dead. There he was; the most beautiful boy he’d ever met, who made Lance’s heart swell and the air evacuate his lungs. Keith was alive and he was there, kissing Lance silly next to a waterfall. Lance was alive to experience this, but so was Keith. It was almost too much, like he was resurrecting a lover he’d thought he would never see again. They had a future together and it was only just beginning. Lance’s eyes burned and he clenched them a little harder, so entirely overtaken by Keith.

Once more, they pulled back. Keith was pressed right up against Lance’s chest, staring up through is bangs to meet Lance’s gaze. Somewhere along the way, Lance’s hands had made it to Keith’s back, keeping him pressed in place. On Lance’s neck, just below his ears, nimble fingers danced along his flushed skin. Every breath was shared between the two, just as every look was, neither able to pull their attention away.

Keith, with his rosy skin and slick lips, was gorgeous. Lance wondered if he looked even half as lustful. There wasn’t time to ponder though, because suddenly, Keith’s eyebrows were shooting up and he was moving his hands down Lance’s chest to press away gently.

“That– I got carried away… Sorry…” The words tumbled off his tongue as another flourish of red bloomed on his already burning cheeks.

“Well, if that’s what happens when I nearly die and then talk down a killer, I guess I’ll have to do that more often,” Lance joked, smirking at the boy in his arms.

With a dubiously playful glare, Keith shoved his cuffed hands into Lance’s shoulder, knocking him back and undoing his hold. “You better fucking not do that again,” he warned.

Lance, laughing, stepped back towards Keith, who was already heading towards the octopus root trees, “Or what? You’ll kiss me?” he coaxed.

Keith gracefully spun around, walking back to stare at Lance with a look that could easily be interpreted as threatening or enticing. “Oh, you won’t like what I’ll do,” he assured, raising an eyebrow.

“Hm,” Lance hummed, tapping his finger to his chin as though he were really thinking hard about the decision he was about to make, “I think that’s just a risk I’ll have to take. Besides, there’s nothing you could do that I wouldn’t like, Keith, my babe.”

Ahead of him, Keith snorted and turned on his heel. It served to quickly hide the adoring smile that was spreading along his face. He dodged some roots as they headed back. “Might want to rethink that because your phone is in the berry field,” he called back.

Lance, who was jogging around some roots to fall into step with the boy, pinched his eyebrows together. “It’s, what?” he squawked, patting down his pockets and noticing the lack of phone for the first time. “What’s it doing there? It was in my pocket!”

“I had to make a phone call; it was urgent. Sorry,” Keith chuckled at Lance’s incredulous expression.

Lance’s face flattened and he frowned, unimpressed, “Just great. It’s probably lost in one of the bushes by now.”

“We’ll find it, don’t worry,” Keith assured. “Then we’ll find that officer who wanted to baton me.” He shook his hands, the cuffs around his wrists jangling.

“I don’t know, I think they’re kind of hot,” Lance joshed, lightly bumping his shoulder into Keith’s as he giggled to himself.

Keith laughed lightly as well before his face quickly blanked and he shoulder checked Lance. “Hilarious,” he deadpanned.

Lance continued to laugh. And right then, he couldn’t have been more at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I'm going to be having a very important announcement at the end of the last chapter, so just be forewarned to look out for it.


	20. Carpal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sure you're all well aware that this is the final chapter, meaning that we will part ways once more! Don't forget to tell me everything you thought about this story as a whole in the comments, it's much appreciated! I do this for you, my lovely readers!
> 
> But, I do have a very important announcement at the end of this fic. Please take the time to read it.

The breeze was light and airy as it crossed Lance’s cheeks. He smiled into it and lifted his face to better feel the light touch of the air. His eyelids slid shut. Leaning back, he pressed his hands into the solid wood which he sat upon. All around him, the trees swayed and rustled calmly as the wind teased them and the birds swooped from branch to branch. The sun caressed his face through the trees, warming his skin softly. His lungs couldn’t take in enough air, expanding ever further on every fresh breath he took. The forest was like a medicine, healing Lance’s mind and soul, freeing his body from all its pain.

There was a feeling in the air that Lance couldn’t name, but it was peaceful and reassuring, as if the darkness that had held the town in chains for so long had finally been vanquished. Lance having nearly forgotten what it felt like to be relaxed instead of on edge constantly, relished in the newfound release that had settled Lionsville.

“I’ve been thinking…”

Lance lazily opened his eyes and lolled his head to the side. Next to him, Keith was gazing off through the trees, not at anything in particular. He absently swirled his glass bottle around. It was moonshine that Keith had made himself from various materials that he had collected from the mountain, as well as what Shiro’s shop was able to supply him with. Keith thought that regular alcohol was a little gross, but Lance thought Keith’s moonshine tasted like hand sanitizer, so they both left the other to their drinks.

“That’d be a first,” Lance answered, a grin pulling at his face when Keith paused his sentence to raise an eyebrow at Lance.

“Ironic, coming from you,” he muttered back, his lips quirking.

Lance giggled before poking the toe of his shoe into Keith’s calf. “What were you thinking?” he asked.

Keith smiled and tilted his head back to peer into the sky as he answered, “I’ve been thinking that I should get a job in town.”

At that, Lance’s smile morphed into a look of surprise. He pushed himself up and leaned forward. “You, getting a job? Why? I thought you liked living off the land.”

Keith shrugged a shoulder. “Everyone knows I’m up here now, so I’m not exactly hiding anymore. It’s also because Shiro offered me a job and I think I should take him up on it. I should join society again.”

As Lance stared at his boyfriend, lounging on the roof of his shack in the back of a mountain, overlooking the town through the scattered evergreens, he saw genuine peace. It wasn’t just the town as a whole that felt lighter, Lance realized, it was the people as well. The air breathed because the people of the town were finally able to stop holding their breath. Keith, who always was a fire and always would be a fire, blinked like a candle. His eyebrows weren’t drawn together in anger, his jaw wasn’t set in determination, his muscles weren’t tensed in defense, his eyes weren’t widened in panic. Keith was relaxed and he was happy.

“That’s great,” Lance laughed. “It’ll be good for you to have some friends instead of lurking on the mountain all the time. Are you going to finally get a phone too so I can stop doing rituals in the woods to summon you?” he joshed, tucking his legs in and pressing his palms into his ankles.

Keith huffed out a laugh and shook his head, amused. “Shut up, you make me sound like some kind of cryptid,” he chuckled.

“You kind of are, though,” Lance countered. “I’m just supposed to walk to the mountain and call your name a few times. What do you call that?”

With an exasperated groan, Keith relented, “Fine, I’ll get a phone.”

Tittering, Lance scooted across the flattened roof of Keith’s house to rest his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he cooed.

Above him, Keith clicked his tongue. “Yeah, you’re welcome,” he muttered.

Keith knew that Lance was just teasing him, that was mutually understood in their relationship, but Lance really was grateful that Keith was willing to get a phone. Not only was it difficult to contact Keith when he didn’t have one, but it would improve Keith’s life to have one, Lance was sure. If there was ever danger on the mountain, Keith could call for help. He could keep in touch with Shiro better. He could have Pidge and Hunk’s numbers and they would be more than willing to send Keith memes. That was an important one since Keith had missed memes while he was hiding on the mountain for so many years. He’d missed a lot actually. Keith was somewhat of a relic, frozen in time.

“Seriously, though,” Lance hummed, “I think a job would be good for you. Pretty soon you’ll just be part of the mountain.”

“I was starting to feel like it too,” Keith replied. “I really noticed it recently. It’s like… It’s like I’ve been hiding from life for so long that I wasn’t even living. You live like you’re dead for long enough and eventually you forget what you are. I think watching you graduate made me realize that I’m… just letting my life pass me by.”

Lance, who was listening intently, shuffled closer. He pressed his face into Keith’s neck and planted a loving kiss on his collarbone. “You don’t have to let life pass you,” he said quietly.

Keith, leaning back on his one hand and swirling his moonshine in the other, sighed at the gentle kiss that lance administered. “I know that now. I want to do something with myself.”

“Like, what?” Lance asked, grinning.

“I don’t know. I want to help people, but I also don’t want to leave the woods.” He paused. “I think I want to fly a helicopter,” he mumbled.

Lance laughed suddenly, pulling away enough to meet Keith’s hazy, half-drunken gaze. “You could do that. No one is stopping you,” he encouraged.

Keith beamed, revelling in the idea of being a pilot. “I’m gonna be a STARS air ambulance pilot,” Keith decided. “Flying, helping people, and mountains.”

“You’d be a great STARS pilot. I’d let you rescue me from the woods any day,” Lance agreed. He pushed himself upwards to kiss Keith’s lips, drawing the tipsy boy’s attention away. When he pulled back, he could see the haze over Keith’s eyes clear slightly. The loving quirk of Keith’s lip whenever Lance was close was enough to make his heart sing.

It had been awhile since the case had come to a close. The court date for Sven Holgersson had come and gone, gaining massive amounts of attention from all over the country, all over the world even. Lance and Keith had attended it, as had everyone else in the town, and Lance found there was nothing more relieving than seeing the real killer come to his justice instead of watching Keith take the fall for what he didn’t do.

Lance went up the mountain a lot more after that. As a matter of fact, the entire town began to visit the mountain more often. There were flowers, wreaths, laurels, stuffed toys, and all sorts of cards decorating the graves of the two young girls that had been found on the mountain. The police were using dogs as well as Keith’s own knowledge of where everything was on the mountain in order to track down the bodies of the other girls who had gone missing, if they were even buried. All in all, though, the forests didn’t seem nearly as dark and the mountain felt like renewal.

Keith had been allowed to keep his home in the woods even though it was unconventional and difficult to get to. Lance frequently visited Keith in his cabin in the woods, helping him to fix it up after it was ransacked by the police, and improving the decorations around the place until it felt like a home that someone could live in instead of a shelter that someone could survive in. Shiro also came by often, more than thrilled to be able to hang out with his cousin at reasonable hours and not in secret. It meant that Keith could use the shop doors rather than crawling through the windows.

Something that Lance had also noticed was that whenever he took Keith into the town or invited him into conversations with Pidge and Hunk, Keith seemed wholly confused for a split second whenever they addressed him or whenever he said something and they responded. It was as if Keith had forgotten that he wasn’t dead to the world like he once was. There was a unsure light in Keith’s eyes whenever it happened. He enjoyed having people who could see him and hear him, he enjoyed interacting with people again, he enjoyed not being the intangible secret that Lance kept from the world, but he didn’t quite know how to handle it yet. Lance would guide him.

There were a lot of apologies that were owed in the town. Adam, firstly, apologized to Lance for freaking him out in the woods that day, as well as to Keith for accusing him of murder. Matt had to apologize for the way he had yelled at Lance and for slandering Keith’s name. Lance apologized right back to the both of them for being as rude as he was. The police apologized for arresting Keith wrongly, but Keith wasn’t too concerned about it since he was more worried about the fate of the town than himself at the times of it happening. Lance apologized to his mother and sister for racing around and solving murders on his own. That was the only apology that didn’t go over because Lance had gotten quite the earful for nearly dying in a grave that night. Overall, though, the town was on good terms.

The clinic wasn’t shut down, but it also wasn’t completely operational. A new doctor was needed, and in a town so small there was only one doctor, it was going to be awhile before they were able to find one. Until then, the nursing staff were working diligently to fill in for the loss of Dr. Holgersson, although they seemed to do just fine, more determined than ever to make up for all the damage that monster had left in his wake. In fact, they had even looked closer into the autopsies that had been done on Romelle and Allura and found that Keith’s knife hadn’t been used to murder Romelle at all. It seemed to have just been thrown into the grave after her in order to frame Keith. Dr. Holgersson confessed to finding it by the waterfall after murdering Acxa and knowing that it belonged to Keith, who the town was already against. He figured he had the prefect someone to take the fall if the bodies were ever uncovered. He admitted to all the murders, including the attempted murder of Krolia Kogane.

All the changes in the town were so natural, but somehow so out of place. It felt surreal to watch as life continued on after the devastating loss of so many girls. Lance felt like everything should have paused, forever unable to move forward without the victims, without Allura, without Romelle, but nothing did stop. The crops still needed harvesting the next day, Shiro still planned his wedding with Adam for the following year, Pidge still prepared for the science fair that Daibazaal hosted every year, Hunk still practiced his cooking to be accepted into a culinary school, Iverson still yipped at Lance when he saw him, Sal’s diner still sold milkshakes, and the police still responded. Nothing was really all that different, even after everything had changed.

Everything was different though, just not in the ways that Lance had been expecting. It was the way that Allura and Romelle and every other person hurt by Sven Holgersson would have wanted it to be. It was different in the sense that the town would notice its loss, but it wouldn’t be destroyed or brought to its knees by the loss. Quietly, everyone would heal.

Sometimes, when Lance was on the mountain, he would call out to his friend. Not anyone who lived in the town, not Pidge, not Hunk, not Keith, but the one who he – and everyone else – had never gotten to see before she had passed. He never got a response. Allura had passed on. Lance was happy for her, but he was also somewhat disappointed that he would never get to say a proper goodbye to Allura. He had been hoping to tell her that they had caught the man who had hurt her, if she wasn’t already aware, and to show her the shrine that was made by her grave. He had wanted to introduce her to Keith and to tell her that everyone loved and missed her, although he had a feeling that she already knew the last part.

Even with all the tragedy that had taken place in Lionsville, it was still full of potential. Lance could see a future for himself, for Keith, for all his friends in town. There was a future for the victims too. They got to move on and to pass over into the afterlife instead of being stuck, frozen in time on a gloomy mountain for eons.

As Lance cuddled up to his boyfriend, nudging him and teasing him, being a general nuisance, he felt the happiness swelling in his heart. It was perfect and promising. When he made Keith laugh so hard that he snorted and fell out of his body, forcing Lance to catch his lifeless body, he could feel the ease of life on his face. While Keith’s ghost tiptoed along the edge of the house like a tightrope walker, teasing Lance with the threat of tumbling over the edge, Lance couldn’t help but see new beginnings in Keith’s grin.

Keith gave a last smirk at Lance, raised his eyebrows with mirth in his eyes, then stepped over the edge of the building. He shot downwards, disappearing off the roof. Lance tried not to smile as he held on to the empty body next to him. Spit coating one of his fingers, Lance waited, primed and ready. The second that Keith came back to his human form, his eyes shot open. Without letting the poor boy orientate himself, Lance jammed his finger into Keith’s ear. He shrieked, lurching away from Lance. It sent Lance into another fit of laughter.

And that was what Lance’s freedom felt like.

 

◊ ◊ ◊

 

Keith blinked. He swallowed. His throat was dry. At his side, his fingers twitched and tapped along his thigh. Grinding his teeth, he continued to stand there, head tilted back and breathing controlled. His heart pounded on his chest, resoundingly loud in Keith’s head. The only part of his body that wasn’t moving, twitching, fidgeting in some way was his feet. They were bolted to the sidewalk.

“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” Lance offered, kindly squeezing Keith’s hand.

Keith could feel as his eyebrows pinched inwards and his teeth gave a particularly tough clank, aching his jaw with the force. “No, I want to do this. I’ll be fine,” he assured. His lungs sucked in air to clear his worries. The exhale instilled more confidence in him and he rolled his shoulders once. Slowly, carefully, Keith lifted his black boot off the cement and took his first step toward the brightly lit building.

There was nothing inherently unwelcoming about the building that Keith should have been put off by. Instead, Keith felt the pit in his stomach open up whenever he thought about the contents of the structure. In theory, it was an obvious choice to go there. On the trip to the building, it started to feel like a bad idea. Outside, though, that was when Keith realized just how impossible this really was.

Except it wasn’t this that was impossible, he reminded himself, it was Keith, himself, who was impossible. He could have gone in there easily, but his own anxieties were holding him back. What was he scared of? Perhaps, it was the mixture of this being his worst nightmare and his best dream at the same time. It was everything he’d ever wanted, but only in theory. As though Keith never thought he would get to this point, now that he was there, he wasn’t sure what he was even expecting.

As Keith approached the building that so many people regarded as a hopeful, relieving, easing place, he couldn’t help but feel his nerves growing. His hand gripped Lance’s a little bit harder. He was so grateful that Lance was there with him. The strength that Lance gave him in that moment was astounding and it was the only thing keeping Keith from turning around and hopping right back on a bus that had driven the two boys out of Lionsville and into Daibazaal. Keith forced himself to breathe. It didn’t calm the beating of his heart, but it did put him in control.

His hand reached for the glass door, cautiously watching the people on the other side milling about. People in wheelchairs, with crutches, with masks. Children, teens, adults, elders. Patients, doctors, nurses, families. People who looked like they could take on the world in the same room as people who looked like they could keel over at any second. 

“Keith?” Lance called out.

At his name, Keith glanced back.

Lance jutted his chin out at the door and raised an eyebrow in an unasked question.

“Right, sorry,” Keith muttered.

He pulled the door open, his fingers shaking and his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth. With his boyfriend close in tow, Keith entered the spotless, white entrance. He felt so out of place in there, like someone as broken and haggard as Keith couldn’t possibly step foot in such a pristine building. No one came to kick him out though. Of course, they didn’t, that would be ridiculous.

“Do you remember what room?” Lance asked Keith, tugging on his hand to guide him towards the elevators.

Keith hummed and tried to keep his eyes solely on the hand that was steadying him. It was difficult with all the noise going on around him. Keith hadn’t gotten used to being visible in public yet. Court was its own experience that Keith still hadn’t recovered from, but here he was, wandering through crowds of strangers. At least Lance, with his radiant smile and with enough charisma to take on the entire place at once, was there to take Keith by the hand when he was uneasy.

“Yeah, it’s on the fourth floor. Room 415,” Keith answered.

Lance smiled back at him, probably hearing the wavering Keith’s voice as he spoke. Once at the elevators, Lance pressed the button and stood back. Each second that ticked by on the clock above the elevator doors made Keith more and more antsy. He shuffled his feet. Lance, who was prone to moving around a lot when everything around him was still, smooth his thumb along the back of Keith’s hand and rocked back and forth on his heels.

The elevator dinged, opening for passengers. Keith grunted with disquiet, but followed Lance onto the lift anyway. No one else was going up right then and the doors slid shut without anyone else entering. The chattering and clattering of the people on the first floor was cut off, leaving Lance and Keith in complete silence. Keith wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.

“Shiro told me that she wanted my first name to be Yurak,” he blurted. He wasn’t sure why he even said that, but he needed something to fill the space.

Lance guffawed violently, his upper body lurching forward with his sudden laugh. “Yurak? That’s not a name,” Lance argued, grinning.

“Yeah, I know,” Keith grumbled. “The old man was too patient with her though because it’s still my middle name.”

Tittering, Lance leaned into his boyfriend, unable to hide how amused he was by the name. “I can’t believe your name is as ridiculous as it is. Like, all of it. The whole thing is whack.”

“My name is fine! There’s nothing wrong with Keith,” he defended, feigning irritation with Lance’s teasing.

“Well, it’s at least a name. Yurak is… something. The worst part is that you make your name cool. How do you manage that?” Lance questioned innocently, a look of awe and confusion overtaking his features as if he were actually interrogating Keith on the topic.

Keith gave a pitiful expression. “Sorry, trade secret.”

Lance scoffed. “Everything is a secret in your family.”

The doors to the elevator opened on the fourth floor. It felt daunting to even consider exiting. Keith huffed out an aggressive breath and trudged out, Lance following the determined man closely. The rooms for the residents were down the west wing, which was easy enough to find with the number of signs plastered on the walls. Both of them studied the directory, shared a look, and then headed off towards the desk where the nurses would all them in to see her.

Luckily, they didn’t make the desk difficult to locate. Lance approached it, practically dragging Keith into the interaction. It went by quickly, uneventfully. The nurses greeted them kindly. Keith could hear his heart thudding in his ears as Lance said a friendly hello to the lady at the desk and signed himself in. The pen shook when Keith took it from Lance’s hand, signing himself in as quickly as he could. He never let go of Lance’s hand, using his left to write his name in.

With some parting words that Keith barely registered, they both made their way down the hall. As they passed some rooms in search of the correct number, Keith’s mouth decided to open again. “She’s not going to know who I am.” The words were soft, nervous.

Lance glanced at him. “You don’t know that. She might remember you,” he suggested.

Keith stared hard at the number on the next room. 403. “If she couldn’t remember anything else, she won’t remember me.” His teeth were grinding again. He had to quit that habit, it wasn’t good. It was better than twisting his knife around through his fingers, at least. Speaking of his knife, he had brought it. On his hip, Keith had holstered the knife that his mother had given him; the only thing that he had from his time with her.

“Even if she did remember you, you’re not the same person anymore,” Lance’s soothing words filled the hallway, mixing with their clacking footsteps. “Either way, she’ll have to learn who Keith is all over again just like you’ll have to learn about her.”

Keith nodded. That was true. Keith wasn’t the same person that he was twelve years ago. A lot had changed. Even in the last few months, Keith felt like he had grown up and matured in ways that he couldn’t have fathomed would happen. He had independence now, he had a purpose, he had strength and courage, he had power that let him take on the world and bravery that let him face the things he couldn’t before. Keith wasn’t the scared little boy that he was at eight. Years of being shunned by his peers, hidden away by his father, taught to fend for himself on the land, in his relationships, and in his understanding of the world, had all shaped Keith to be the man he was today. He wanted to make his mother proud when he met her. That, above all else, was his desire.

415\. There it was. The door looked like every other door in that hallway as far as appearances were concerned, but to Keith, it was so much more. He stood there, frozen, just like he was when they had first set foot into the building.

What would he say when he went in there? What would she say? What did she look like? Did Keith, himself, look presentable enough? What if she didn’t want to meet him? What had Shiro mentioned about him? What if he fucked it up? What if she let him down?

His mind was rife with questions and thoughts that all ruled over his actions. It was a haze of anxiety clouding his brain.

“Hey,” Lance asserted.

Keith, drawn in, stared at Lance, the beautiful anchor of strength that he was. “Hey,” he whispered.

“No matter what happens, you’re still Keith and you’re still a force to be reckoned with.” His eyes were unwavering, intense in their delivery. Keith felt it. He dipped his head sharply in response, letting Lance’s energy fill him up.

With that, Keith shifted his hand around in Lance’s hold until their fingers were intertwined and he stepped forward to open the door. It clicked as Keith turned the handle. He sucked in a sharp breath and pushed. The two boys entered, hand-in-hand.

The room was quaint and minimally decorated, only one small plant sitting on the nightstand. The walls were deliberately painted black with a blue stripe tying its way around the room and numerous branching strands of purple. The closet, the bed, the lamp, the alarm clock, and the accompanying bathroom – from what Keith could see – were all standard and unchanged.

That wasn’t important though. That wasn’t what caught Keith’s attention and rendered his heart inactive.

“Hello,” the woman said as she pulled away from her spot by the wall where she had been touching up the purple branches on the wall. “I was told I would get visitors today, I wasn’t told who.” She sounded somewhat unimpressed with the arrival of her two new guests. She set the paintbrush down on a stool that was next to her and rubbed her hands free of ink with a towel that hung from her hip. “Krolia Kogane,” she introduced, extending her hand.

Keith, letting go of Lance briefly, raised his hand in greeting. They clasped each other, shaking once. Keith’s mind was stuck, too stunned by the fact that his mother was right there in front of him.

Her hair was black like his was. She had the same angry tinge about her face as well. Her eyes were purple and so familiar after Keith had glared at the same eyes in the mirror for so many years. Strength and resilience; Keith could feel them radiating off her in waves. He couldn’t remember that about her from when he was a child, but there was a very distinct air about her that Keith admired immediately. Her hair was short in the front, but it twisted off into a long rattail at the back. It worked on her, even though she had dyed a pink streak through the whole thing. Keith’s eyes flicked across her face. There were scars. She had two large stripes of discoloured skin on each cheek, and another along her neck.

This was his mother. She was alive.

Krolia moved to pull her hand away, but Keith didn’t let her. He stepped forward, still grasping tightly onto his mother’s palm. Her guard went up slightly, Keith could see it in her eyes. “Do you remember me?” he breathed.

She stared at him, her face full of suspicion, uncertainty, and absolutely no recognition. “Sorry?” she huffed, her eyebrows furrowing.

“Look at me,” Keith ordered. His voice cracked. “Do you know who I am?”

No longer trying to pull her hand away, Krolia paused. She studied him. Her eyes roamed his face and shifted back and forth, as if she were clawing through her brain to find some explanation for the boy in front of her. Gradually, her eyebrows flattened out and her look morphed from wary to apologetic. “No, I don’t. Have we met before?”

Keith bit his lip and ducked his head. Her hand tumbled from his as he released his crushing grip. The blood pumping through his body was so loud in his ears. Shaking, Keith reached into his holster. The blade glinted in the light of the lamp as he removed it and spun it around. With outstretched hands, Keith offered the blade to Krolia. “You gave this to me.”

She stared at it, her mouth parted on thoughts unspoken. Her hands floated upwards, accepting the knife as if she were accepting a newborn child, and really, she might as well have been. “I… gave this to you…?” she echoed.

“When I seven years old, you gave me a knife,” he reiterated.

Her head whipped up, her eyes widened, her breath sucked inwards.

“What kind of mother gives her son a knife at seven?” Keith huffed, a broken laugh on his tongue.

Her hand gripped around the knife. “Keith…” she whispered.

“Hey, mom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ###  **ANNOUNCEMENT**
> 
> This is my last fic.
> 
> Now, I've been writing for Voltron and specifically for Klance for two years. I started January of 2017 and since day one, I gave it my all. I put everything into the fics I wrote, and I'm a better writer for it! Writing for everyone here on AO3 made me very happy and you have no idea how important this was for me. I've always wanted to write but I never believed in my writing enough to actually do it, and what finally made me start was the end of a relationship that was dragging me farther and farther into the dirt.
> 
> I found immense joy in thinking up AUs and storylines and fixing things up and anticipating the response I'd get and drawing fanart for my own fics and crafting the smallest details that I wanted to include. Writing the stories, while sometimes difficult since I wanted to be as fast as I could, was always something I looked forward to. Uploading my stories got me so excited! It was also an outlet for all the repressed gay feelings I had for _the boys._ And reading the comments was always the single best part of my day! It would be so difficult to keep myself from looking at my phone in every class because I wanted to see if there was another comment! And the fanart, the praise, the love that I received, it was all more than I could have ever hoped for. Thank you sincerely. 
> 
> And now, it's all a chore. I don't feel the same excitement about writing for Voltron. I don't enjoy planning, I don't enjoy writing, I don't enjoy putting in the work, I don't enjoy uploading, I don't enjoy drawing fanart. I still read the comments and appreciate all of them, I just can't even formulate a response anymore. I've been drained. 
> 
> I don't want anyone to think I don't appreciate them or that I hate writing for them, because that's not true. I've loved this and I've loved all of you. Voltron did not exhaust me, I have exhausted Voltron. I still love writing so much, it's like flying, creating worlds and characters and stories! I have so much more left in me, just not for Voltron. I want to move on. I will come back, but not for this ship, or this fandom, or this account. I will be creating a new account for any future fics I write because I want to keep fandoms separate. My new account is [Kaidos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaidos/profile) (I've been wanting to get away from the name Sheksper since the moment my friend pointed out it sounds like Shakespeare.) If you have a suggestion for a fandom I should join, those are much appreciated. 
> 
> Also, I have tons and tons and tons of unfinished Voltron fics that just never happened, as well as entire plans for how they would have worked. If, for whatever reason, you want me to email those to you or upload them here, they're free for the taking. Maybe you can turn them into the fic that I never could. Sorry this was so long, it is my farewell speech.
> 
> And once more, completely and wholly, _thank you._
> 
> -Sheksper, (Newly, Kaidos.)

**Author's Note:**

> Updates every three days!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Ghost In Your House (Ghost In Your Arms)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18803842) by [Hero_in_Heels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hero_in_Heels/pseuds/Hero_in_Heels)




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